Hotel booking tool launched with GPS integration
Published by Steve Litchfield at 14:51 UTC, September 9th 2008
Hotelzon, a corporate hotel online booking company, has launched a native S60 search and booking tool, Hotelzon Mobile, with GPS integration. All very swish, and well implemented, if a little over the top for something with less than 300 UK hotels in its portfolio. Still, a good effort, and a pointer, for others, as to the way things should be done in the future. Screenshots and links below.
The application offers a 'GPS search' which uses your current position, provided by GPS, to show the hotels nearest to you. The quick and advanced search options offer a more traditional approach; it allows you to find hotels by city or country or a free text query. You can also access current reservations in he 'My reservations' portion of the application.
Once you have found a suitable hotel you can make a reservation from within the application.
Linksand press release
Hotelzon home page , Hotelzon Mobile download link.
Here's an extract from the press release:
Hotelzon UK (www.hotelzon.co.uk), one of the UK’s leading corporate hotel online booking companies announces today that it has introduced an innovative mobile phone hotel booking application software allowing smartphone users to achieve real-time hotel booking.
The new Hotelzon mobile phone service sets a new standard for mobile hotel booking, enabling users to search, book, view and cancel their hotel room reservations anywhere and anytime.
Olli Juvonen, Managing Director of Hotelzon UK, commented:
“Hotelzon’s new mobile phone service will transform the way business travelers’ book hotels. Armed with a powerful mobile application, business travelers with smartphones are now able to book a hotel whenever and wherever they are. More than one million hotel room nights were booked last year through our Hotelzon online service and we are glad to expand our offering to mobile phone users to meet the global needs of the modern business traveler, so no matter where you are, this system will find the nearest and best available accommodation and book it.”
Hotelzon’s mobile phone service is a fast and easy booking service. It is available in 5 different languages and provides access to more than 90.000 hotels worldwide covering 150 countries and more than 20.000 cities.
(via Ricky Cadden)
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Categories: Software
Platforms: S60 3rd Edition
News Discussion
malerocks
Now this is what I call smartphone functionality... Great work...
aragornsbeared
Yeah, if someone like Lastminute or Laterooms did a tool like this then the world would be a happy shiny place :)
viipottaja
File under "Nice, but useless for 99.99% of people". Who looks for a hotel when you are already there?
Ratkat
Available in Download on E71
Unregistered
Press release states availability of more than 90.000 hotels, not 300.
slitchfield
The PDF might well say that, but from my own searches and from the banner on their own site, the figure is less than 300 in the UK. Maybe they have 89000 hotels listed in China?
Unregistered
how about this one gps base application for booking a table at resturants
i think that would be more useful.
Unregistered
I like many people never know where i am going be in advance so always need to book a hotel late in the day for that night. The fact that you are able to pinpoint hotels near to you as well as make a booking is fantastic.
Unregistered
Not sure where you got 300 hotels from??? Hotelzon have over 90,000 hotels worldwide which all show the lowest available flexible rates. There is a huge variety of hotels on their inventory, from your standard "budget" hotels, right up to 5 star hotels, so there is always something on there you can afford to book. The idea is predominantly for travellers who need to book hotels when they do not have access to the internet on their PC's. For example, the sales person on an appointment who misses the last train home at night and who therefore needs a hotel urgently, or the employee sitting at the airport waiting for a flight who thinks he may as well book the hotel he needs for next week etc etc. Corporates will see this as an excellent way for their employees to feel extra secure when travelling (most seasoned travellers have had the unfortunate experience of being stuck and needing a hotel to stay for at night - you dont always know in advance that you need accomodation).
N/A
I'm a frequent corporate traveller. When I need a hotel, I call my company's travel agent (24/7 service) and ask them to book it.
And if you have a phone with an application like that, you also have a phone with Internet access, so you don't need the app that badly.
Anyway, good luck with it, and hope there are enough users to make it worth the development effort.
Unregistered
I think you're missing the point here. If you call your corporate travel agent out of hours to book a hotel you will be charged a seriously large transaction fee for them to do that (typically around £25 or a premium rate telephone number). The phone application is completely free to download and thats the crucial difference in this current economic climate. Plus Hotelzon are more likely to have better rates as they have enormous global buying power in the industry.
Of course, the application will not be deemed to be necessary for every Corporate but the initial response is overwhelmingly positive.
Unregistered
I like it! It's just so easy to use.
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