Travel brands laser in on mobile experience in India

In early September, Phocuswright published its India Total Market Report, which provides a comprehensive view of India’s travel market, including detailed market sizing and projections, distribution trends, analysis of major travel segments and key developments. Below, PhocusWire dives deeper into the mobile-first approach that travel brands are taking in India.

India is one of the largest smartphone-using countries in the world, and an ever-growing number of consumers are making purchases through mobile platforms. This trend is leading travel brands to heighten their focus on mobile and dedicate more resources to improving the smartphone user’s experience.

India’s mobile gross bookings rebounded quickly in 2021 to surpass pre-pandemic levels and emerge as the channel to recover the fastest, according to the recent Phocuswright analysis, “India Travel Market Report 2021-2025.”

Mobile bookings are projected to reach $17 billion by 2025, accounting for 73% of all online bookings. The growth will fuel a speedy post-pandemic recovery for online travel agencies, according to the report.

“More Indians are using mobile phones than ever before. They have easy access to inexpensive, reliable broadband data and a propensity for making digital transactions – factors driving the shift from offline to online-led distribution,” say­­­­­­­­­ Phocuswright analysts Deepak Jain and Virenda Jain.

“Plus, the country’s younger demography favors online distribution channels, making it the mainstream channel for travel bookings,” the analysts add.

Intense competition among smartphone manufacturers and tech innovations are keeping smartphone prices low, driving up use, the Phocuswright report reveals.

Also, unified payments interface (UPI), which connects multiple bank accounts to apps, has “democratized access to banking services” and “revolutionized digital payments,” Phocuswright finds. From April 2021 to March 2022, Indian consumers made more than 46 billion transactions through UPI, worth more than $1 trillion.

OTA bookings on mobile devices are forecast to triple by 2025, reaching $10.3 billion and accounting for nearly 80% of all OTA bookings. The upward trend underscores a decisive shift in consumers’ travel planning and booking behavior.

“This will create fertile opportunities for the Indian OTA ecosystem to invest in further boosting their mobile presence and offerings,” the Phocuswright report says.

Airline supplier-direct bookings from mobile platforms will account for nearly 60% of online direct air bookings by 2025.

In the hotel segment, the mobile share of online supplier-direct bookings is expected to remain muted, only reaching 11% by 2025.

Meet travelers where they are

Noreen Henry, chief revenue officer for travel marketing platform Sojern, says the rise in mobile bookings in India will fuel a wave of new international travel from India for two reasons:

First, more people have access to desirable travel offers due to the prevalence of smart phones.

Second, because smartphones tend to not be shared devices, “brands can respond with personalized travel offers for that specific individual,” Henry says.

To keep up with competitors, at a minimum “companies must ensure their mobile websites adjust to the size of the user’s screen and are easy to navigate and read,” Henry says. She points to Google, which prioritizes mobile-optimized websites.

On mobile apps, travel companies can leverage push notifications to remind customers about upcoming traveling dates, allow them to add a boarding pass or hotel booking to their mobile wallet or even notify them at the airport when their plane is boarding, according to Henry.

She recommends providing an “easy-to-access chat function with a quick response time for last-minute travel questions.”

Travel companies should target customers with “timely, personalized messages” where they are, including social media apps and news sites.

Simplified mobile display

With the growth of mobile, India-based EaseMyTrip’s focus – and marketing budget – has shifted from desktop to mobile, says Prashant Pitti, the OTA’s co-founder. The growth of mobile bookings will make EaseMyTrip “accessible to even more users, penetrating the most remote places” as travelers “depend less on their local travel agencies.”

The digital-first approach means that brands like EaseMyTrip will invest heavily in technology to develop more personalized and targeted marketing. User experience is critical because it determines whether someone ultimately buys a product or not, according to Pitti.

All our campaigns and marketing efforts are mobile responsive, so our customers have an excellent user journey.

Prashant Pitti - EaseMyTrip

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On smartphones, EaseMyTrip displays only the tabs that are “useful to the user.” This helps to “clear the clutter” and simplify the booking process, Pitti says.

EaseMyTrip uses different marketing tools for different platforms, for example, running mobile ads, SMS marketing, email marketing optimized for mobile, and app campaigns optimized for the mobile user only.

“All our campaigns and marketing efforts are mobile responsive, so our customers have an excellent user journey,” Pitti says.

The company analyzes mobile-specific data to understand the customer’s persona and buying patterns and develop a mobile-specific strategy, for example by “retargeting the same mobile users.”

However, says Pitti, “desktop will not lose its relevance. A large part of ticket bookings still happens on desktops. Most users still prefer consuming content on a desktop due to their large screen size and will continue to do so. Most software is optimized only for desktops – that will remain.”

Social media marketing

At the India-based OTA Yatra, more than 83% of traffic is mobile – not a surprise given that India is largely a mobile-first country for Internet usage, according to Manish Hemrajani, the OTA’s vice president, corporate development and investor relations. India “leapfrogged” the desktop straight to mobile, he says.

“Ever since the advent/adoption of the Android platform back in 2009, the focus especially in India … has been on optimizing the user experience on the small screen/mobile platform,” says Hemrajani.

Yatra redesigned its entire app from the ground up in 2017 and has been making incremental improvements to the platform ever since. The OTA’s mobile traffic largely comes through the mobile app versus through a search engine.

I see Meta becoming an increasingly important aspect from a U/X standpoint for OTAs.

Manish Hemrajani

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Air, bus and rail tickets are relatively easy for OTAs to sell because they are selling a grid of seats, according to Hemrajani. Hotels, on the other hand, are unique in every way: location, proximity to restaurants and entertainment, room layout, views, size and customer reviews.

“This is where OTAs or dedicated travel apps really shine,” says Hemrajani. “OTAs are now able to further enhance UX with 3D layouts of hotel rooms, and in some case Meta platforms are in development where one could virtually explore the product before making a booking. I see Meta becoming an increasingly important aspect from a UX standpoint for OTAs.”

Yatra takes a mobile-first approach to marketing. The company’s top aim is to strengthen brand recall to compel more customers to install the app and use to book travel.

“Toward that end our marketing efforts are heavily focused on social platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. We currently have 2.4 million followers on Facebook and 107,000 followers on the Instagram platform,” says Hemrajani.