Spaniards spend 67% of their online time on the mobile phone.
Roiback, specialist and leader in the management of the direct channel of hotel sales, has informed that more than half of searches for hotel reservations this summer have been made through the mobile phone and have generated a 19% percent of the total sales.
In this context, Roiback has talked about the importance of streamlining and facilitating the reservation process through the smartphone. This is highlighted by Rebeca Gonzalez, Managing Director of Roiback: "Mobile traffic has grown exponentially in recent years, reaching over 50% of the total traffic on hotels websites. But, very often, this traffic does not translate into a reservation. There are several reasons that explain this fact, but most people seem to forget one of the most relevant, which is that a bad mobile experience reduces drastically the conversion rate in this channel. At the same time, it also limits the reservations assistance from mobile to desktop, which means those reservations that have been started on the mobile phone, but ended on the desktop, are also affected by the bad experience of the mobile channel. In conclusion, it is not the same to have a mobile designed solution than a responsive website."
To respond to market demands, Roiback has launched Mobilis Pro, one of the most cutting-edge products in the sector. It works like an App but does not need to be download. Thanks to a simple design and a great usability, it makes the reservation process easier and quicker, without losing the power of Roiback’s booking engine, Backhotel 4.5.
The product offers hoteliers a 100% mobile designed solution that allows websites to have faster loading times which translates into a greater conversion in hotel reservations. Last year, the vacation hotels that started using Mobilis Pro registered an average increase of 31% in their conversion rate.
Another advantage of this product is its high loading speed, with fast response times that allow to have a positive user experience that fits with the hectic mobile world. It is estimated that 40% of users will leave the hotel website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Mobilis Pro leverages Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology as a formula to drastically increase the loading speed to about one second. This way, one of the most important factors of user abandonment is eliminated because, according to Google, for each additional second after three seconds of loading time the conversion is reduced by 10%.
Spaniards spend 67% of their online time on the mobile phone
The technology company based in Palma de Mallorca has also reported that in Spain the mobile phone already means 67% of users’ online time, while in some areas of the world, as in Indonesia, the number increases up to 91% of the time spent on the internet. Regarding this aspect, Gonzalez added: "In the current context, in which mobile searches increase more than 20% every year and, therefore, it also raises mobile's influence over total sales, it is essential to have an optimized mobile website which is prepared for online sales. Those who are not prepared and do not offer an optimal mobile solution will continue to lose sales and will experience how their acquisition cost to capture the same bookings gets higher. The mobile conversion rate is, and will remain for now, lower than the desktop’s, but the goal must be to reduce this gap as much as possible. For this reason, it is crucial to have the right technological solution."
Mobilis Pro allows to offer specific contents for Web Mobile and completely differentiating its positioning. It includes the option to sell transport and hotel packages as well as to integrate all the hotel communication systems (Call Center, WhatsApp, Chat Web Messenger and Assistance Bot). Recently, Roiback has also incorporated a Loyalty module into its solution, which makes it easier for hotels to establish a favorable strategy for their direct channel with the aim of strengthening the long-term relationship with the customer.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
