NB: This is a guest article by Brett Henry, VP of marketing and VP for India at Abacus International.
To stay relevant, travel companies need to adapt themselves to the changing times, and currently that means mobile.
Accommodating for the increasing number of travellers who are likely to access websites from their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets is one of the most important strategic decisions companies in the sector are now making.
Here is why.
Microsoft Tag has already predicted that by 2014, mobile Internet usage will supersede desktop internet usage, and a survey showed that 90% of Asia Pacific-based travellers now use smart phones or other web-enabled hand-held devices.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, the shipment of smartphone units already exceeded that of personal computers, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report in February this year.
Companies such as travel agents are facing some challenges with the increase of mobile internet, as the web interface that most users end up encountering are browsers that are not customised for smartphones and tablets.
Sites may take a long time to load and leave consumers with negative impressions, leading to poor customer contact points for companies.
Research has shown that three out of five people will be less likely to return to a site if they are unsatisfied with it, and 40% even choose to visit a competitor’s site next. This demonstrates the importance of having mobile versions of websites that are compatible with mobile devices and allows consumers to access them quickly and easily.
This is where HTML5 comes in. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the predominant markup language for the web. An essential building tool for webpages, HTML provides the basic platform to organise and display content on the internet.
As demand for a richer web user experience increases, different coding languages have been introduced into the market to help integrate multi-media into the web interfaces. HTML5 represents the latest advances in this coding language.
With its remarkable ability to integrate video, audio and other multi-media without the use of proprietary plug-ins, it has already been touted as the next standard for website design.
HTML5 is beneficial to companies as it cuts across various mobile operating systems, allowing consumers access to web content that looks and behaves like any other user-friendly mobile phone application.
Moreover, it only requires content to be uploaded onto a central web-source. Companies thus need not waste extra time and resources or incur additional expenses to adapt desktop versions of their websites to suit various user devices and operating systems.
A device-detection technology may be added to the web-source with the application of CSS Stylesheets. With the use of CSS Stylesheets, content managers have the liberty to create a filtering channel that identifies the devices consumers are using to access their HTML5-enabled websites.
Given this device-detection capability, users will be able to retrieve web contents specifically catered to fit their user interface, be it a smartphone, desktop or tablet.
Abacus VirtuallyThere is one such solution that leverages HTML5 to enable travelers to access a mobile-friendly version of their travel itineraries through their smart phones and tablets.
With 53% of leisure travellers indicating that receiving real-time flight information is the biggest benefit of going mobile, HTML5 -based services enhance the travel experience by providing travellers what they need easily and efficiently, no matter what platform they may be using, and hence provides a better way for companies to connect to their consumers.
The travel industry looks to move into a new era of enriching the traveler experience on the road. The attractiveness and opportunities of new codes like HTML5 make it irresistible to shift into, thereby reducing the need for mobile apps.
Travel suppliers should consider taking the advantage of this available technology with the right partner and solutions to deliver a totally differentiated mobile travel experience.
NB: This is a guest article by Brett Henry, VP of marketing and VP for India at Abacus International.
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Hmm, this article is a good illustration of why a VP of marketing should not be writing technology articles. It is laced with inaccuracies and a lack of understanding of what HTML5 brings to the table. Mobile is big, for sure. HTML5 is great, for sure. But HTML5 isn’t a panacea for developing mobile web applications. You don’t write once in HTML5 and sprinkle some CSS magic on top as this article suggests.
Is fact checking outsourced to the comments section now on Tnooz
Is the conclusion that HTML5 will make dedicated apps obsolete? That would be great if you could just build one website and not worry about rolling out apps for all the different platforms.
> Is the conclusion that HTML5 will make dedicated apps obsolete? That would be great if you could just build one website and not worry about rolling out apps for all the different platforms.
While native apps will certainly have an advantage over pure web-apps for some time to come, there is a tendency, or developing trend if you will, that proposes just that: developing webapps that operate smoothly on a wide range of devices, regardless of browser size, etc.
This ‘responsive design’ as it is coined, was started by the following article: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/ last year. There’s already tons of information out there, but that article plus http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/12/guidelines-for-responsive-web-design/ will be a good start.
To me, not so much HTML5, is the key driver here, but the awareness, that with a multitude of devices, we can’t possibly be able to support all these different channels with dedicated sites or apps. (Or your development budget must be in the millions and even then looking at cost-benefit is really key). So one ‘repsonsive design’ really makes good sense generally.
Obviously, when/if the goals of your mobile (location / status updates?), ipad site (inspiration?) and general website (transactional?) are miles apart, having dedicated sites/apps for these channels might still make good sense.
I agree with Kevin’s comment that the article seems to suggest that HTML5 is like your golden wand; touch and all your troubles are gone.. HTML5 is just the next iteration of HTML which happened to be at version 4.
For travel?
- HTML5 spec for embedding video without the need for plugins will be useful, I agree. After all, iOS (Ipad, Iphone) doesn’t support flash, nor are they likely to ever support it, if you ask me.
- HTML5 localStorage. An unified way of being able to bring (part of) your site offline. Think cityguides without roaming charges, etc. (or gmail which should be available offline now if I rememeber correctly, so you can setup some emails in the air, and send them out as soon as you have internet nearby)
Lastly, if I was pressed to choose one new driving technology for ‘responsive design’ (not necessarily the crux of this article) I would choose CSS media-queries. These enable you to apply styles to your websites (possibly hiding / showing parts entirely) based on the device your site is visited on. See the linked articles above for more on that.
Hope this helps some.
I usually avoid ranting against misguided tech articles, but this post really goes too far in terms buzzword surfing, and is not even very well informed…
Multimedia support is the biggest strength of HTML5?? Well, even if that were the case (no mention of geolocation?? offline support?? local storage??), then how much is this relevant for travel? Maybe a little, but definitely not to the point of calling it a revolution!
HTML5 is magically portable across all devices?? Well, probably not as much as you think (try using something as simple as CSS background images on Blackberry 4.5!), but nothing about this has changed ever since HTML started appearing on mobile phones some time last century.
A device detection technology allows using CSS stylesheets?? I fail to even see any connection between these two concepts… Yes, CSS now has media queries, which is a sort of client-side device detection (although it’s more of a screensize detection solution), but the device support for CSS media queries is not particularly great yet.
Someone has to stop the ongoing overhype over HTML5. Yes it’s great, but please don’t give it credit for things that were already in HTML for about forever, and don’t let people think it gives web apps as much capabilities as native apps. It never will – although of course, whether or not your particular app has needs that go beyond HTML5′s capabilities (and I’m guessing very few actually do) is YOUR call, not some Marketing VP’s.
So, I’m voting for Kevin’s comment: please, no more technology articles from Marketing VPs…
Btw, if VirtuallyThere wants to claim support of HTML5, they should at least use the correct doctype for it
Hi ALL:
I’ve asked Brett and Abacus to answer some of the specific points raised in the comments. Hope that helps.
The feedback that this article is over buzzed and oversimplified are on target. My apologies, not the intention.
Intention was, and our push is to encourage agencies to focus on having a great mobile specific website. HTML5 is a welcome addition to help deliver more compelling user experiences via the web.
Certainly not my contention that HTML5 solves the worlds problems nor does it eliminate the value of apps.
I think ultimately dedicated apps will ultimately be a thing of the past. If you take a walk back in history, when United Airlines first launched United Connection as a disk based solution, the reason was that the state of HTML in 1996 could not support advanced functionality and security:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1996_June_7/ai_18363025/
United Connection was a leader in advanced online functionality that we now take for granted; no other airline was offering such a service at that time. The target was Travelocity.
Just as the PC browser was limiting back then, mobile apps are now used to overcome the limitations of mobile web browsers. In the future, we won’t need dedicated mobile apps, but it looks like that will be a few years away.