Over at the Expedia headquarters today, executives met up with travel and technology bloggers to talk about the company’s vision for the future of travel technology, and where the Bellevue-based online travel company sees itself driving the trends.
Topics included the newly released Expedia Hotels app for iPad, developed by the company’s Mobiata team and designed for people making hotel bookings at the last minute within a nearby radius — after arriving in a city on a trip, for example.
Ben Kazez, the founder of Mobiata (acquired by Expedia last year) said the app reflects the tendencies of younger generations to treat hotel reservations more like dinner reservations, making accommodations on the fly and at the last minute.
It’s one of the ways the company is looking to go more mobile. Looking out into the long term, Scott Durchslag, the president of Expedia Worldwide, sketched out a future in which Expedia becomes more involved in the trip itself, not just the process of booking the travel. He calls it an example of “Web 3.0,” where the experience and information are streamed to the user on the go.
Here’s one slice of the scenario Durchslag described …
Say you’re leaving here to the airport later and you’re running late. Well, guess what we know it’s you. We know your itinerary. We know where you are because of the GPS in the phone. So we can stream to you and say, hey, don’t rush, you’re flight’s delayed. Don’t worry. And as you’re approaching the airport, we’ll know where you’re approaching, and we can say, hey, go to the north end at Terminal 1. There’s no lines at security. How valuable would that be?
The idea, he said, is to “integrate these services through a very easy-to-use, personalized interface.”
The pieces of that vision are already possible based on technology today, and Expedia plans to roll it out over the next couple of years.
In conjunction with the Expedia Hotels app, the company will also be looking for new ways to get travelers last-minute deals on nearby hotels, Durchslag said.
The company will also be offering customers rewards for their social activity, such as posting a video on Expedia related to their trip.
Another newsworthy tidbit gleaned from the briefing: The catchy, classic Expedia “dot-com” jingle will be returning to the company’s commercials starting in about two weeks.
“They got rid of it a few years ago, but I love it,” Durchslag said. “It will be back.”
