As Reserving.com continues its foray into the US market, it’s taking a mobile-first strategy to advertising and marketing, making the most of the rising variety of hours People spend on their telephones.
“The app is a essential platform because it provides us extra alternatives to have interaction instantly with vacationers,” mentioned Glenn Fogel, CEO of dad or mum firm Reserving Holdings throughout OTA’s first-quarter earnings name. “And in the end we see it as the middle of our linked journey expertise.”
The corporate’s renewed attain within the US started in February with a Tremendous Bowl advert that includes actor Idris Elba.
“Reserving.com worldwide is by far the most important on-line journey company, however clearly we’re the competitor in the USA,” senior vp and chief advertising and marketing officer Arjan Dijk mentioned in an interview. “And my mission is to guarantee that we aren’t the challenger, however primary.”
Dijk maintains that Reserving.com is a market chief in lots of areas of the world because of the number of merchandise it presents, its costs and its ease of use. These are the three necessary rules for any e-commerce participant, he mentioned.
“The important thing, actually, within the US is that we expect as a model we’ve got lots of worth so as to add,” he mentioned, citing the providing it presents each inside and out of doors the US.
And the Reserving.com app will assist lengthen the OTA’s attain to shoppers as cell phone utilization continues to rise. Whereas research range, some have estimated that People spend as much as six hours a day on their cell telephones.
In truth, within the first quarter of this yr, 40% of all bookings have been made by way of the app, in keeping with Reserving.com, and 60% of all room nights got here from cell bookings, principally by way of the app, which at present has greater than 100 million month-to-month lively customers.
Dijk expects these numbers to rise, with cell bookings finally dwarfing desktop bookings (he pointed to Meta, which does not even report Fb desktop utilization anymore).
“Individuals have three, 4, even seven journey apps on their telephone,” Dijk mentioned. “So it signifies that if you wish to be seen by shoppers, it’s a must to be a part of a kind of seven.”
Subsequently, Reserving.com is taking a cell app-first strategy to advertising and marketing, he mentioned. For instance, OTA commercials usually embrace some form of reference to the cell app.
“We’re clearly seeing momentum within the US market,” Dijk mentioned. “We’re seeing very sturdy progress. And you know the way it really works with TV promoting: We do not essentially count on it to instantly translate into bookings, we use completely different channels for that, nevertheless it’s way more about rising our consciousness.”
A ‘contextual expertise’
Whereas Reserving.com continues to help desktop reservations, Dijk mentioned he thinks the worth proposition for utilizing the cell app will enhance sooner or later. For instance, the OTA hopes to quickly supply a “extra contextual expertise.” For instance, if a traveler is staying in a resort in Amsterdam and it is raining, the app would possibly supply them museum tickets.
That matches with Fogel’s imaginative and prescient of linked journey.
“I believe there’s a large alternative for the journey business to be extra customized and extra contextual, with out it being creepy,” Dijk mentioned.
Dijk joined Reserving.com as chief advertising and marketing officer three years in the past after 11 years on Google’s govt crew.
Earlier than that, he was European Advertising and marketing Director for Capital One. He started his profession at Unilever within the 1990s.
