Currently over 60% of smartphone owners have downloaded some sort of travel-related app. Of those, 30% have booked a last minute reservation from their phone and 24% of both business and leisure travelers have paid for their trip via mobile, all totaling an estimated $150 billion dollars spent in just mobile bookings alone.
Today Randi discussed how to monetize mobile applications within the billion-dollar industry of business travel with two major app developers: AJ McGowan, co-founder and CTO of travel service DUFL, and Jared Kons developer of Bug Spray, a mobile application that repels mosquitos.
“I like bringing consumers a better experience.”
“DUFL is a premium travel service geared toward business travelers.”
“It’s the closet in the cloud.”
“The genesis moment for us was on a business trip from London to Phoenix. We said there’s got to be a better way to do this.”
“We just launched on Android last week to a big waiting list of people ready to sign up.”
“Word of mouth works best. Business travelers are a tight knit community.”
“Entrepreneurship is the most exciting thing in the first few weeks and months.”
“We were really focused on key technical aspects in building DUFL.”
“We’re big believers of intellectual property. It should be a part of your strategy, even if it’s only from a defensive perspective.”
“The most important thing for hotels is the business traveler. As well as for the airlines.”
“Everything front to back is set up as a premium experience. All our handlers come mostly from retail and our facilities are under extreme security.”
“Instead of spending two hours to go grocery shopping, I can now do everything from my phone and have it delivered.”
“When people open up that suitcase it’s a complete game changer.”
“Bug Spray emits a high frequency tone to help repel insects and pests.”
“The frequency emits a higher tone than most people can hear.”
“I developed another application that uses tones humans can’t hear but dogs can.”
“This range is within the human hearing range but as we age we lose the high frequency tones. I can’t hear anything above 17 kilohertz.”
“Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool.”
“I work with developers and large companies on how to protect themselves and their ideas.”
“There’s been an explosion of software patents since the App Store. It makes it tricky to get a patent going forward.”
“The app has had almost 2 million downloads.”
“I had an app that was pulling GPS coordinates all the time, wasting battery power, so I had to delete it.”
Favorite travel apps from callers:
Les from Texas: “I’m an over-the-road truck driver, I use Fuelbook, the best fuel prices on the route.”
Matt from Michigan: “I do a lot of last minute traveling so my favorite is Hotel Tonight. One improvement I’d make is to search the best deal along your route.”
Michael from TN: “I use the ITA Matrix app for all my travel. It’s the software the travel agents use to find routing information.”
Make sure to join ‘Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckerberg’ next week when Kelly McGann, the CMO Sears Connected Solutions, and Alexis Rask, Chief Revenue Officer of Shopkick join the show. Wednesdays at 9am PT/12 ET on SiriusXM Business 111. And don’t forget to call in with your questions for Randi or her guests LIVE at 1-800-WHARTON.
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