Most Hotel Apps Still Need a Radical Overhaul
Photo Credit: L2 singled out the Virgin Hotels app as an example of a particularly good hotel mobile app thanks to its multi-purpose functionality. Virgin Hotels
Skift Take
If mobile is increasingly becoming a more popular channel, not only for booking and search but also for in-destination travel experiences, this report is proof that hotels have a lot of work to do when it comes to their apps.
Most of the hotel apps out there aren't worth downloading onto your smartphones. At least that's what researchers from business intelligence firm L2 Inc. found when they conducted a recent survey of 311 hotel brand apps.
While hotel apps are abundant, very few are considered useful or essential. "L2 research found that the majority of hotel apps don't crack the list of the top travel apps in the iTunes App Store, nor have they even been updated in 2017," said Michael Silverman, senior client strategist at L2 Inc. "Only 14 percent of apps reviewed ranked in the top 1,500 apps in their native categories in the past year."
Worse yet, only "34 percent of apps haven't been updated since 2016 and 20 percent haven't been updated since 2015 or earlier, which we call 'left for dead,'" Silverman added.
And while there are, he said, "a lot of interesting, in-stay experiences that some hotel apps offer — from keyless entry and ordering room service to streaming Netflix on your TV — c
