forTravel Research Case Study
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The School of Mobile Vol. 2 - The Detail Chapter 1 - The Travel Buying Cycle
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indoors. Although it is not very accurate, for some
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Spotlight on:
lastminute.com & the changing land-
types of LBS it is accurate enough. If you need to
scape of Loca�on Based Services: know: Where is my closest place to go and eat? For
that kind of thing it is good enough. It won’t direct
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• The LBS of a few years ago was not really up to you le� or right but it is going to inform you of rel-
standard. Partly because it was rather expensive evant op�ons and help you come to a decision.
and partly, because the need was to be able to tar-
get people who are travelling as
lastminute.com is • Another key thing that has changed in the past
all about people who are going on holiday or trav- year is that you can now get access to loca�on
elling outside of their normal environs. Thus, only data in different ways. Google pla�orms provide it
being able to locate someone within their home through their database or you can get it from third
network is clearly quite a big restric�on. The avail- par�es. No longer do you have to rely on the phone
ability of phones with GPS has really opened up a operators. In this way you can access informa�on
whole world of possibility in terms of leveraging about every loca�on irrespec�ve of the operator.
LBS as a key driver of the
lastminute.com brand and Clearly this is gold for travel companies when you
service offerings. can provide these services wherever your custom-
ers are and be with them throughout their experi-
• In terms of LBS, GPS is not the only op�on and ence. Another problem with operator-dependent
o�en not even the best one. It is a fantas�c way services is that you have to pay each operator
to go if you are outdoors but some�mes there is a separately which clearly adds up very quickly and
lot of delay before it kicks in. For
lastminute.com, will rapidly dilute the cost effec�veness of any pro-
cell-site loca�on technology works really well and is posed LBS offering.
quite useful as it happens straightaway and it works
Three components of lastminute.com’s mobile strategy:
lastminute.com have defined three underlying themes on which to deliver current and future mobile
ini�a�ves:
• POST BOOKING ASSISTANCE – CAPTURING THE FOOTLOOSE TRAVELLER
This part of the strategy is focusing on people who have booked some kind of travel and then need various
kinds of help with their trip once they have booked. “I have booked my flight, it is delayed what am I going
to do?” or “I need to get to the airport which flight am I on?” or “I am at my des�na�on, how do I get to my
hotel?” There is a team within Sabre working on applica�ons to address these kinds of crucial ques�on as
and issues. This ability to provide constant support to the traveller is a key part of the
lastminute.com brand
iden�ty. A lot of what
lastminute.com sells is inherently social whether it is a �cket or a restaurant meal. One
of the things about these post-booking apps is that there is an element there where it is not only about what
the traveller wants to know but about what their family and friends may want to know. communica�on as
crucial i.e. for the person picking you up from the airport. This prong of the strategy has very strong links to
the others and cannot be seen in isola�on
• BE A FONT OF INSPIRATION
The second part is not so much the booking stuff but the actual original inspira�on genera�ng ques�ons
like: “What should I do?” or “Where should I go?” and “How should I get there?” This is more where
lastminute.com plays. This can be split into travel and non-travel elements. On the travel side it might be
something like: book your hotel room, car rental and so on. On the non-travel side it may be restaurant
bookings, �ckets to shows, a�rac�ons etc. Within Europe,
lastminute.com are closely focused on this
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