January is a big month for the travel industry: with the holidays behind us, many consumers are dreaming of that getaway to escape from the long winter ahead. I see the evidence of this trend every day as my inbox fills up with sales and specials from various travel sites.

So, with this in mind, how should travel brands ramp up to 2012 marketing? Stephen Gates of Starwood Hotels & Resorts (who will be leading our workshop at The Mobile Marketing Conference "Best Practices in Creating Mobile Websites") recently shared the video interview below with mobithinking.com.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts is one of the world’s largest hotel groups focused on luxury brands, and Gates discusses here how Mobile and HTML5 allow Starwood to create a mobile brand experience that stays true to the unique personality of each of their brands.



Some key takeaways: Travelers are more likely to turn to mobile for information, as it is easier to access in a distant location than traditional internet.
Travelers are looking for largely utilitarian, transactional information (a reservation number or address) and are in a hurry to find it, make it easy to find this information via your mobile site.
Mobile provides an immediate conduit to your consumers while they are currently using your service, users largely access information via mobile while they are staying or just before.

Stephen also shares some ideas about how HTML5 will impact the future of Starwood's mobile presence. Head to mobithinking.com for more or to view their full series of mobile expert interviews.

Or, to hear more from Stephen Gates, join us this March at The Mobile Marketing Conference. Download the brochure to learn more about his workshop. Save 15% when you register with code TMMC12DIGITAL here.


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Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com