Expedia Go Tech Savvy Launches app for tablets to book hotels and flights
Published on 16th September 2014, 11:08
Giant of travel domain Expedia has launched Expedia app for tablets in India. The app will be freely available for Android, Apple and Blackberry platforms. This exclusive app for tablet users enables them to choose among various destinations, hotels and flights.
Kathleen Tan, CEO of AAE Travel, which operates on the Expedia brand in Asia said, “Expedia is moving from being just a website to being a travel data platform for the users wherever the are, on whatever device they are on. Expedia, world’s largest travel company and AirAsia, world’s best economic air carrier jointly run AAE AirAsiaExpedia.
“Travellers expect an easy, convenient way to explore travel destinations and browse flight and hotel details and they expect to be able to do it in a way that feels right for them when they’re on their tablet. Our tablet app gives them this experience, while leveraging the indepth industry knowledge and personalized insights our powerful Expedia search engines provide”.
In 2013, tablet growth has increased exponentially in India in year 2013 with half of the users spending two hours or more on the tablet, according to the industry report. Keeping the upcoming surge in tablet users in India Expedia is now eyeing on applications for mobile devices that provide best travel planning experience.
“At Expedia, investing in technology has always been our priority and with the exponential rise in Indian tablet market, we wanted to explore this vertical and ensure an allround presence with this first ever tablet travel app in the Indian market”, said Vikram Malhi, MD, Asia, Expedia.
To address travellers evolving needs, the new Expedia tablet app is specifically optimized for mobile exploration and browsing and introduces a handful of unique features:
Single Search Box: To eliminate heavy search interfaces, the new tablet app offers a single search box to do the lifting. When a traveler enters a city name, landmark, or airport code, the app will show hotels and flights relevant to that query – no dates or specific details are required at the start.
FirstEver Combined Hotel & Flight Travel Search: For the first time in the industry, combined search has arrived for the travel market. Rather than searching for trips in a rigid, linear progression of flights then hotels, or hotels then flights, Expedia is introducing one combined search that provides both hotel and flight results simultaneously, available all in one glance.
Collections: Expedia presents various themed travel destinations to spark interest in future journeys. Collections offer customers the opportunity to explore vacation destinations they may not have otherwise considered. Beautiful locations come to life in a particularly compelling way on tablet devices. Collections offer a rich combination of design, mobility and travel research.
Content is catered to various regions and will be updated based on traveler feedback.
Consolidated Trip Planning, Booking, & Data, Shared Across Devices: In the begining of 2014, Expedia introduced Scratchpad in certain markets around the globe. Scratchpad is a easier way to keep track of your travel searches. When a traveler is signed into an Expedia app, trips researched on a tablet device will appear on the desktop or mobile Scratchpad allowing travellers to begin their travel planning from where they left off – on any device.
“The travel industry has largely thought about each trip as a single transaction and has poured energy into making individual transactions better. That’s no longer enough for travelers who dream, plan, research and buy travel across multiple devices,” notes John Kim, Chief Product Officer at Expedia Worldwide. “We’re beyond the era of just desktop and mobile. Expedia is evolving how we think about that connected customer and how we invest to best serve them before, during and after they travel. Our new tablet app embraces Expedia’s core strengths by bringing together our marquis hotel and flight capabilities to create one beautiful and easytouse combined search experience. We encourage people to try it and share their feedback.”
