Bedbank hotels4u.com has teamed up with The Handy Group to create an accommodation search and booking service for mobile phones.
Hotels4u head of e-commerce Steven Moore described the service as a ‘working prototype’, which enables consumers to search live availability and booking via a secure payment engine.
Moore said the service had been in development for some time and described the mobile arena as complex.
“On the Internet you have a browser and windows that cover the vast majority of users, but the mobile arena is very different. The challenge is to get it to work on everyone’s phone, browser and network provider.”
Moore said the success of the mobile service would depend on its adoption through the networks. He added that Handy was handling the negotiations.
However, Moore was doubtful about whether the market was mature enough for bookings via mobile devices.
“I still don’t see users booking through that channel but it’s not far off,“ said Moore.
Moore also said the company had considered the marketing potential for mobiles such as alerts and post-booking information, but the current focus was on the consumer website.