24 May, 2007：Mobile Travel Technologies is close to offering a low-cost flight booking service via mobile phones.
The Dublin-based mobile travel specialist has formed a partnership with a low-cost airline technology specialist to offer the research, booking and payment facility via mobile phones and devices.
MTT founder and executive director Gerry Samuels said mobile services getting "traction" in the travel industry were those putting travel itineraries onto travellers´ mobile phones as well as maps and directions, the ability to manage bookings and ´value-add´ information such as weather reports.
He added that simple bookings were also gaining momentum as well as the management of information such as travel notifications.
"Japan is the most advanced market and ANA gets about 5% of bookings through mobile internet so it is coming," he said.
MTT signed an agreement this week with Pegasus Solutions to make mobile services available to its member hotels including Utell.
Through the deal Pegasus will use M2B, MTT´s mobile travel technology platform, to offer its 78,000-strong hotel membership a choice of two solutions. The first will enable travellers to retrieve their booking information, cancel, check the location of the property and hotel information and the ability to send a text message that gets delivered to the hotel by e-mail.
The second option is a full-service offering allowing consumers to book hotels as well as access all the other information.
MTT´s technology can be adapted to have mobile internet services for groups of hotels or each individual property depending on the demand.
Samuels also predicted that within the next 12 months "a good number" of the largest airlines and hotel groups would be offering the opportunity to push bookings and relevant information through mobile phones.
