Expedia Preparing to Enter the Mobile Booking Game
I don’t know why this race for dominance on mobile in general between online booking services interests me, but it does. It’s just been disclosed that Expedia has bought mobile travel applications developer Mobiata – an iPhone-specialized company – for an undisclosed price. The company cites increased mobile traffic to their site as the sole factor in taking this initiative.
“With the pace at which mobile traffic to Expedia sites is exploding, we wanted the right team to help us address the sizable opportunity swiftly and successfully,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia, Inc. “There’s simply no better company out there doing mobile travel apps with the same level of design sensibility and utility as Mobiata.”
But it’s more than that. Nearly all of their major competitors are sitting on the Apple app store as quietly as they can as they’re being used every day by thousands of people. And the same picture is starting to come to form on Android. Kayak beat everyone to market as the first well-known travel site with an app, and they were alone for a while, but Priceline and Orbitz decided to make their own moves recently (and on the same exact day, no less.) These companies foresee a busy holiday season, obviously, as mobile booking is quite the convenient utility for people who tend to have to change plans up on the fly.
Expedia’s name is just as big as the rest of them, though, and they’re not looking to be left out. I should note that Mobiata doesn’t make Android apps, but we can’t see Expedia electing to leave out the platform which even Steve Wozniak says could take the #1 spot.
[via Cellular News]
[Update]: It seems I’ve missed the memo that states Mobiata does – in fact – make Android apps. And some pretty popular ones, to boot. That’s what I get for relying on nothing but the Android market to do my research. (AppBrain brought their name and apps up right away, though.) My mistake!