A recent survey conducted by Clickatell, communications platform as a service innovator and Chat Commerce leader, reveals that 87% of consumers prefer mobile messaging to communicate with travel companies.

The research polled 1 000 US participants and found that 92% would use cellphone messaging to interact with hotels; 89% would like to use mobile messaging to interact with airlines; and 85% would like to communicate with rental-car companies in the same way.

Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X travellers also all place mobile messaging as their top method of communication with travel brands, showing that younger generations are the most inclined to interact with brands via mobile.

The report also suggests that travel companies are missing out on a unique application of the mobile messaging experience – payments. In fact, 73% of consumers indicated that they had never made a purchase via an SMS payment link.

However, with 77% of consumers saying they were willing to use a mobile payment link with travel brands, there is opportunity for airlines, hotels and rental-car companies to enhance the travel experience and allow consumers to browse, purchase and track their travel plans all on their mobile phones.

Of respondents, 48% indicated that they wanted mobile communications from airlines at the time of booking and 63% said they wanted such communication within 24 hours of booking.

Consumers would most like to receive a message on the day of their trip with important information, with 60% of consumers wanting to receive a notification of any last-minute changes to their flight itinerary. In addition, 48% would like to book a flight reservation with an airline via mobile messaging.

However, more consumers would prefer to use mobile messaging with hotels (92%) compared with airlines (89%). For hotels, receiving a mobile message that your room is ready and requesting early or late check-in is the highest preference among consumers (58% want a notification that their room is ready and 41% want to be notified to upgrade their room).

Some 54% of consumers would like to receive a message on the day of their trip with important car-rental information, and 50% want to receive a notification of any last-minute changes.

The study also showed that iPhone users were more compelled to use mobile messaging with travel companies compared with Android users.

“The data shows that there is an opportunity for travel brands to deliver services to their customers easily and conveniently via mobile messaging, which consumers desire and demand. Perhaps now more than ever, consumer loyalty is up for grabs and travel brands need to capitalise on every touchpoint,” says Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder of Clickatell.

To view the full Chat Commerce Trends Report: Travel Edition 2022 infographic, see here.