Lastminute.com has teamed up with mobile phone giant O2 to launch its first booking facility for hotels via a mobile phone. The system will be exclusive to O2 customers using the I-mode platform on handsets and will enable users to make a secure booking at 80,000 hotels featured on Lastminute.com. Flights and so-called lifestyle products…
Lastminute.com offers hotel booking for mobiles
Lastminute.com has teamed up with mobile phone giant O2 to launch its first booking facility for hotels via a mobile phone.
The system will be exclusive to O2 customers using the I-mode platform on handsets and will enable users to make a secure booking at 80,000 hotels featured on Lastminute.com.
Flights and so-called lifestyle products are also to be included on the I-mode system by the end of the year, Lastminute.com said this week.
Head of mobile at Lastminute.com, Daniel Yates, said: “With more and more people using the internet to buy travel – the online leisure travel market is set to grow by 46% in Europe this year – it is clear that people are continually looking for more convenient ways to make informed travel purchases and increasingly comfortable using technology.
Lastminute.com has used mobile since 2000, using WAP technology, although recently co-founder chairman Brent Hoberman has admitted the company may have been too hasty entering the market.
“We’ve been learning on mobile for five years, so we were maybe too early in it,” Hoberman said at the last meeting of the Travolution advisory board. “I think we are very well prepared now as it moves to become very useful.”
Yates said: “Demand for booking travel on the move is clearly there,” he said. “As the pioneers of travel technology, Lastminute.com is continually looking at ways to enhance the consumer booking experience, and making travel bookable over the mobile handset is a natural next step for a company which was at the forefront of the online travel revolution.”
Lastminute.com said its mobile internet site received on average over one million page impressions each month.
