EyeforTravel, a web site filled with travel distribution news, events and analyses, has recently published an interview with Robert Hamilton, the Project Manage of Google Mobile.

The scale and the pace of technological advancement in mobile continues to present today’s consumers with new offerings, taking their experiences and personalization to unprecedented levels. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 280 million mobile subscribers. By the end of 2011, more than half will be smartphones.

In an exclusive interview with EyeforTravel, Google recently told them that mobile hotel queries have grown almost 3000% in just three years! Travel marketers should consider how the information from a mobile phone can more fully inform them about their users. They need to use the location functionality of a phone to provide relevant, location-based ads and information about their company. 1 in 3 queries on a mobile phone has local intent, indicating a powerful desire on the part of consumers for location-specific information. Focusing on location is just one of the ways to best use mobile capability to drive optimal consumer response.

With the changing media landscape, the behaviour of consumers has undergone a dramatic change. It is imperative for the travel industry to continuously embrace change and speak the language their customers understand. In order to assess the current sentiment in the marketplace, EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Robert Hamilton, Project Manager: Mobile at Google. Excerpts:

What do you see as the most significant development in terms of the way consumers consume content or engage for travel requirements?

Robert Hamilton: The rise of smartphones with browsers which can both display desktop sites and make it easy for users to interact with them has been significant and we expect mobile usage to continue to increase as the browsers get better.

Research has indicated that an increasing proportion of online time is spent browsing content, communicating and networking, rather than buying things. Is there anything which travel companies need to take note of while assessing their customer’s buying behavior?

Robert Hamilton: Consumers are spending longer researching their travel purchases online, especially last year in the recession there was a greater emphasis on consumers searching for the best value.

Browsing content is a critical part of the research phase, however travel businesses must get better at communicating their unique value proposition or generating urgency in the buying process.e.g. the number of seats left at this price, last seat sold 2 hours ago etc.

Considering the duel between the search sites and social media platforms for traffic, how do you think this battle is expected to shape up? What does this signify for travel companies who at the moment are increasingly shifted towards tracking all marketing touch-points and monetizing across all online channels?

Robert Hamilton: We don’t see this is a duel – users are choosing to get different services from different places and that’s always been the case.

Search is a great way to understand users’ intent and it’s still the start of many online behaviors.

Social media is continuing to evolve with Twitter ads, booking engines on Facebook pages, etc. further helping advertisers engage their audience in the right way. How significant are these developments as far as travel companies’ marketing budgets are concerned?

Robert Hamilton: I’d expect travel companies to continue to focus on those channels which offer a trackable return on their spend.

All forms of media will clearly be important in building brand awareness and driving direct response actions – however, those channels that are measurable and can easily demonstrate a positive ROI will win the budgets of marketeers.

Location is the holy grail of the mobile experience. One of the major developments this year has been the availability of free navigation systems on mobile handsets. And the way applications are mushrooming around location-based services, one can only expect more excitement in this area. What do you make of such developments from the travel industry’s perspective?

Robert Hamilton: It’s an exciting time, and users are responding by generating more and more geo-tagged content across all kinds of services.

The chance to include location information when commenting via services like Google Buzz and Twitter makes it easy for travelers to share experiences in situ – surfacing this kind of immediate word-of-mouth reviewing will become increasingly important.

1 in 3 queries on a mobile phone has local intent, indicating a powerful desire on the part of consumers for location-specific information. Has the industry realised that focusing on location is just one of the ways to best use mobile capability to drive optimal consumer response?

Robert Hamilton: I think there’s still some way to go here – there is enormous potential for travel businesses to upsell, improve check in services, sell post purchase ancillary add ons or give greater relevant information all linked to location specific information.

This whole area is largely untapped and will be an enormous opportunity for brands to create differentiation in the immediate future.

Which major trends do you foresee as far as customer engagement via various devices or web platforms are concerned? What should travel industry look-out for?

Robert Hamilton: Customers will increasingly demand an end-to-end engagement across a range of platforms, and to be able to research, consume and share travel information on whichever device they find most useful at a particular stage of their decision-making process.

To read this interview in its entirety, click here.