The company has heavily invested in smartphone search technology for convenient travel booking.
A recent comScore mobile commerce study has shown that among users of iPhones and smartphones based on Android, Windows, and Blackberry technology, 51 percent had used a travel-related website to help to make their decisions regarding booking hotels, airline tickets, and other forms of reservations.
Orbitz Worldwide is well aware of the fact that one in every five owners of a smartphone has used that device in order to make a reservation with a hotel or airline.
They have made significant investments in the creation of a well supported mobile experience.
The company has created optimized mobile commerce websites that are accessible from any type of smartphone, and has also built apps that are compatible for Android devices as well as iPhones and iPads.
They recognized the importance of creating sites that were designed specifically for the mobile experience, as smartphones and tablets have notably smaller screens than the average desktop or laptop, and therefore create a different experience when using a standard site that is designed for a bigger screen. Furthermore, many mobile devices have touch screens, so the optimized sites have been created to allow users to interact with the sites through taps and swiping, as well as the incorporation of GPS compatible capabilities.
The Orbitz mobile commerce sites have been streamlined to make searching and booking easy for consumers.
As the primary focus of the company is on hotels, they have placed particularly large emphasis on being able to search for hotel deals and to make the bookings in a fast, easy, and convenient way over smartphones and tablets. This investment included apps for iPhones and iPads, such as the “Hotels by Orbitz” application, which uses the device GPS to be able to display a number of hotels to the user, which are available that night near his or her current location. Verified reviews from real travelers are provided, and a hotel reservation can be made at any point in three taps.
Already this year, the mobile commerce results from that company alone have shown that 12 percent of the searches made for hotels have been performed through the use of a mobile device.
