Hotelzon To Expand Mobile Service

The online corporate hotel booking agency Hotelzon told EuroBTN yesterday that it would extend its mobile reservations application to the BlackBerry, iPhone and other devices in the next week or two. It has been offering a similar service to Nokia users since September 2008.

Hotelzon's mobile application enables corporate travelers to make hotel reservations using links to reporting systems and policy filters—displaying only preferred suppliers, for example—similar to its personal computer platform. Other new mobile platforms it plans to make available later this month include Google Android, used by Motorola, and Windows CE, used by some other U.S. phone manufacturers.

Like Nokia, Hotelzon is based in Finland. It has wholly owned operations in Sweden, the United Kingdom and China. It claims to have handled 1.2 million room nights in 2008.

CEO Jani Kaskinen said that since becoming available on Nokia phones, the mobile platform has accounted for an average 6 percent of all Hotelzon's reservations. "When corporate travelers use the mobile application, the same rules apply," he said. "It means they can make a booking in the middle of the night, but leave an audit trail."

One quarter of bookings taken by Hotelzon via mobile are for checkin on the day the reservation is made. "Typically, travelers use the mobile option if their plans change during a trip," said Kaskinen. "They can do it through their phone instead of having to open up their laptop, but it is a controlled environment."

Kaskinen said the main difference from the PC version of the booking tool is the mobile version displays fewer properties. It is integrated with the phone's global positioning system functionality so travelers can look for preferred hotels within a defined radius of where they are located. The mobile service also will provide a map of how to get to the hotel.