SMARTMONEY MAGAZINE
Published February 14, 2011
Travel Apps Redefine Last-Minute Trips
by Kristen Bellstrom
http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/travel/travel-apps-redefine-lastminute-trips-1297280004513/
Travelers are now using apps to book last-minute trips to destinations like Hawaii.
For many people booking last-minute travel means reserving a week—or, for the truly daring, a few days—before hitting the road. But Tim Lamar takes the idea a little more literally. In fact, on a recent trip to Chicago, he booked his hotel room while idling in his car outside the property.
Lamar reserved the room with his iPhone, using a discount site to score a rate nearly 50 percent below what he was quoted by the hotel. The Prairie Village, Kan., documentary filmmaker says he used to dread eleventh-hour arrangements ("You just knew it was going to cost you," he says), but since he started relying on his phone, he's booked on the fly half a dozen times. "The risk is far outweighed by the reward," Lamar says.
Welcome to the latest in last-minute—actually, make that last-second—travel. Even as rising prices have industry pundits prophesying the end of deals, a small but growing band of vacationers is harnessing the newest travel innovations to take seat-of-the-pants trips to the next level. Indeed, a recent study by booking site Priceline found that 82 percent of travelers using the company's mobile app booked their hotel room within 24 hours of arrival, compared with 45 percent of desktop bookers. Some, like Lamar, take off with only a portion of their trip preplanned, while others make midvacation course corrections, like upgrading to a nicer hotel or adding a new stop to their itinerary. Then there are the last-minute cowboys, who swagger off the plane armed with nothing more than an app-loaded phone and a vague idea of where they hope to lay their head.
To be sure, only a small segment of the vacationing population has jumped on the book-and-go bandwagon so far. But it's not just the hostel set; in fact, many converts are experienced travelers who, thanks to the flood of last-minute offers sparked by the recession, have gotten comfortable with the idea of biding their time to snag the best deal. And as apps and other mobile travel tech get more common—35 percent of online travelers say they plan to use a mobile device to plan or book travel in the next 12 months, up from 19 percent over the past year, according to research group PhoCusWright—the ranks of spontaneous trip takers are expected to swell. The travel industry's recovery could even end up feeding the last-minute machine, say experts, as companies start the tricky process of raising rates and adding capacity—some of which is likely to end up going unsold.
Still, today's trips-on-the-fly have all the downsides that have long dogged last-minute travelers: limited options, last-choice rooms and—worst-case scenario—sometimes no room at all. Plus, booking on a mobile device has its own hazards. Companies that develop travel apps say people usually spend less time searching on their smartphones than they would on their home computer and might overlook a deal they would find with a bit more time and digging. And it's not just savings that speedy bookers miss; because mobile surfing can be awkward and slow, many skimp on the kind of in-depth research that might have saved them from a last-minute letdown.
While the recession pulverized most of the travel industry, there was one segment that seemed impervious to the plunging Dow: so-called opaque booking sites. These websites, which provide discounts to travelers willing to buy without knowing exactly which hotel or rental car they're getting, are known for offering some of the biggest bargains at the last minute, when companies give up on more profitable sales techniques. Indeed, opaque site Hotwire says more than half of its reservations are made within 24 hours of the check-in date, while Priceline allows travelers to make same-day hotel bookings until 11 p.m. And now, this last-minute strategy is going even further into the mainstream, with industry giants like Expedia and Travelocity recently adding their own opaque options.
If opaque booking brought the last-minute travel trend to the masses, it's the rise of the smartphone nation that's helping travelers take their on-the-go tendencies to a new extreme. Most travel-booking sites can now be viewed in a mobile-friendly format, and a few, like Orbitz, have developed their own apps, which they say are even quicker and easier to use. Orbitz's recently launched apps—available in iPhone and Android formats—also harness the GPS capability of phones, allowing travelers to automatically search for last-minute openings at the closest hotels. For travelers, the option to book on their phones is beginning to transform the process of trip planning—and in some cases is allowing them to dispense with the planning part altogether.
Cindy Gapinski doesn't seem like the spur-of-the-moment type. In fact, the Chicago entrepreneur spent weeks planning her recent Hawaiian vacation, including four days in a charming bed-and-breakfast in Hilo. But there was one thing Gapinski forgot to account for: nonstop rain. Even worse, the weather elsewhere on the island was perfect. "It was so painful to know it was sunny and gorgeous on the other side of the mountain," she says. So, rather than go on yet another soggy hike, she used her phone to hunt down a discounted room at a Marriott on the far side of the island. The last-ditch gamble not only saved the vacation, says Gapinksi, but transformed her usual prevacation stressing: "Now I feel like I can just change the plan and it's no biggie," she says.
Of course, winging it does have its downsides. To begin with, booking just a day or two in advance is an option that's largely limited to hotel and car-rental reservations; so far, companies haven't made it easy—or cheap—enough to attract many last-second fliers or tour takers. And when it comes to hotels, the recovery could mean that travelers will start seeing fewer choices—and even some sold-out nights. Hotel occupancy edged up by more than 5 percent in 2010, according to travel consultancy Smith Travel Research, and is expected to continue to climb this year. But perhaps the biggest hitch is the difference between leisurely surfing the Web from a laptop and the hassle of trying to navigate a variety of sites on a screen the size of a playing card. Companies themselves admit that travelers search differently on their mobile sites, often doing fewer searches and booking more quickly. According to a Priceline spokesperson, users of the company's mobile application make fewer bids and typically settle for a less substantial discount.
For Rita Moreno, it wasn't the booking that was the problem. The Los Angeles–based financial analyst didn't mind leaving for her New Orleans getaway without a hotel for the final leg of her stay, and indeed, she had no problem booking an affordable room less than 24 hours before she checked in. But in the rush, Moreno ended up skipping her usual prebooking routine of carefully reading other travelers' online feedback. It was only after settling into her "drab" and "stinky" room that she had a moment to check the reviews—and discovered that her fellow travelers might have tipped her off to the grimy carpet and suspicious-looking bed ("I was up half the night worried about bugs!" Moreno says).
Still, it seems that the prospect of a few creepy-crawlies isn't enough to deter some travelers from planning their vacations as they go. Even Moreno says she'll probably try last-minute booking again. "It's like being in Las Vegas," she says. "I'm willing to risk it."
TRAVEL INFO TO GO
Vacationers now have their pick of tripcentric apps, all promising to turn their phones into a pocket travel agent. Some options:
PackingPro ($2.99)
Packing checklists
Ever manage to pack everything—except your underwear? PackingPro is devoted to preventing this snafu with handy packing lists. And while it won't send you into bankruptcy, there's a charge for this app. (The company says it also offers a basic version for 99 cents.)
Where (free)
All-in-one location guide
Where uses your location to track down everything from nearby gas stations to local movie listings. But the app isn't always free; on some phones, it requires a monthly subscription fee.
WeatherBug Elite (99 cents)
Forecasts
Follow the sun with this app, which uses "hyperlocal" data to deliver targeted forecasts. Hurricane season? It also offers severe-weather alerts. Some users report that past versions were buggy, but the company says it has made revisions.
