Harteveldt says he, Jeffrey Breen and Rich Ridolfo, with the latter two having +worked at Forrester several years ago, will be the cofounders of the new company, Atmosphere Research. The new company will perform industry and consumer research and provide consulting services.

Harteveldt, who has been at Forrester for more than 11 years, says he decided to leave the company because Forrester’s publications were largely geared toward certain job titles — such as chief marketing officer or various ecommerce roles — and Forrester “wasn’t able to figure out a way” to enable him to do more comprehensive research.

Harteveldt will remain in his post as chairman of ATME (Association of Travel Marketing Executives).

The study, Why Smartphones Will Become One of Travel’s Two Most Important Touchpoints, written by Henry Harteveldt, notes that while only 22% of U.S. adults have smartphones, 35% of U.S. online leisure travelers and 55% of U.S. business travelers use these mobile devices.

“This critical mass of adoption enables — make that compels — travel organizations to develop and executive smartphone-based eBusiness strategies and tactics that will keep them connected with their travelers, an audience that is willingly tethered to their smartphones,” the study says.

By 2013, smartphone will join traditional websites as the two most important touchpoints in travel, Forrester says.

The research firm makes a series of recommendations on how travel companies should address the new mobile landscape. Among them:

• Travel companies should ensure their apps can identify the user’s mobile location, provide push alerts and have the ability to run when the traveler has no Wi-Fi or cellular connection.

“To keep app users engaged, travel sellers must configure their CRM systems to track travelers’ usage — including the ability to send alerts when a person’s usage falls below predetermined levels, so the travel seller can reach out to the traveler to re-engage him,” the study says.

• Travel sellers need to meet travelers’ expectations in terms of “what they want when they want it” and offering the ability to easily modify or cancel reservations should be a top priority, the study says. And, taking advantage of smartphones’ GPS capabilities will help ensure that travel companies can provide the most relevant offers, the study says.

• Acknowledging that “it won’t be easy,” the study advises travel sellers to inspire their customers by ensuring that apps and mobile sites provide easy navigation to video content, which should be formatted to fit nicely on a smartphone screen. Augmented reality, too, should be part of the mix, the study advises.

“For example, if consumers gain the ability to virtually try on clothing from a retailer’s smartphone app, will they soon expect the ability to ‘try on’ your business class seats, hotel rooms or shipboard spa? (Hint: The answer is yes.)”

And, with smartphones especially suited for last-minute bookings, Forrester argues that new travel revenue-management models will emerge over the next couple of years.

Says Forrester: “Under this scenario, a traveler at LaGuardia Airport using an app to find a hotel in midtown Manhattan for a same-day arrival might be offered a higher rate than a traveler at Boston Logan Airport using the same app for a room at the same hotel for the same night.”

That advice comes from a new report, How Travel eBusiness Can Engage Conversationalists, the New Social Media Group, by Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research.

“Members of the group that travel eBusiness professionals need to pay attention to for their social commerce potential are the 53.8 million U.S. online leisure travelers who are Conversationalists — travelers who participate in the social media conversation at least weekly on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn,” the report says. “Members of this youthful, mobile-focused audience have the potential to drive sales thanks to their vocal nature, influence, and high engagement with online travel activities.”

The report recommends five ways to engage the talkative ones:

1. Publish your company’s promotions on its fan pages and tweet them, as well.

2. Place a booking engine and/or add apps to your company’s social networking pages. This will become easier for companies to do because vendors such SynXis, Open Hospitality and Axses are offering such booking engines.

3. Introduce ratings and reviews into your websites. Conversationalists love this sort of stuff and are actively post ratings and reviews.

4. Allow customers to share your site’s content with other customers and social networking sites. “Make the ability to share user-generated content on a customer’s profile page a benefit of creating a profile on your Web site,” the report says, “and let the customer control how that content gets shared with your other customers.”

5. Make sure you have a mobile strategy. And consider offering perks based on performance to Conversationalists using location-based services. “An  airline, for example, could offer a complimentary beer or wine to a Conversationalist who ‘checks in’ at one of its airport clubs and has another friend meet her at the lounge,” the report says.

In other words, make sure your travel firm converses with the Conversationalists — to increase your influence.

Hold off for now, says a new Forrester Research report, Location-based Social Networks: A Hint of Mobile Engagement Emerges.

“Forrester recommends that bold, male-targeted marketers start testing but that most marketers should wait until they can get a bigger bang for their buck, when adoption rates increase and established players emerge from the fray,” the report says.

The Forrester study notes that a mere 4% of U.S. online adults have ever checked-in with a location-based service and only about 1% file updates more than once a week, according to Advertising Age.

So, if you feel like all of your friends and colleagues are checking-in all over the country on some nights, rest assured that your circle of intimates is a narrow one.

Forrester reports that the vast majority of location-based apps users are male and the research company recommends that gaming, consumer electronics and sportswear advertisers will find these mobile apps the most fertile for testing, Advertising Age says.

Many industry people argue that travel is a perfect fit for location-based apps.

For example, InterContinental Hotels Group is connecting with guests through Gowalla when they check-in at the property.

Many other travel companies, too, are experimenting with location-based apps and depending on the results, they may dissent from the study’s findings.

The issue may come down to this: Location-based apps may become a sweet spot for travel marketers — but when?

The study, The Online Travel Brands that Win with U.S. Leisure Travelers, did conclude that U.S. online leisure travelers find that Expedia.com offers the widest array of destinations and the best customer service, Priceline stands out for its pricing and value, and hotels.com gets the highest marks for its hotel content.

But these three OTAs, which bested Travelocity, Orbitz, Kayak and Hotwire in the survey, shouldn’t clear space for these honors in their trophy cases because almost half of the survey respondents had no opinion about the respective brands, and the differences, even among the winners, weren’t all that dramatic.

Where the report gets interesting is where the authors, Henry Harteveldt and Elizabeth Stark, suggest solutions for what they say consumers view as “a homogenous beige mass” of travel intermediaries.

The study points to InsideTrip, with its quality scores for flights, and Tripkick, which rates hotel rooms, as adept at providing contextual information for online trip-planners. The authors give kudos to Expedia for its integration of Seatguru content, but call it “too little” and “too late in the process.”

The study suggests that the OTAs create availability displays with contextual information that gives consumers the option to select and deselect choices, and then dynamically update them for the optimum user experience.

The report also punctuates the theme that mobile apps are mandatory, and it points to the Kayak for Blackberry application and the HotelsByMe.com apps for Android and the iPhone as clear winners.

“Since time and location will both be important, a successful mobile app will not only factor in location using GPS but also allow users to customize it to more closely reflect the way they travel, using criteria like budget or price point, supplier brand or required amenities or services,” the study says.

Expanding on their differentiation theme, the authors also call on the OTAs to integrate theme-based trip-planning into their booking applications.