Hilton Hotels is in the process of launching a new mobile service for customers in the UK. This will allow leisure and business travel customers to book hotel rooms via their mobile phones.

This mobile service can be accessed by entering the Hilton.co.uk site on your mobile device. Using Mobile Travel Technologies, a Dublin based specialist, the service provides access to change existing bookings and view information and pictures about hotels. Information about facilities and even directions to the hotel can be viewed.

The Hilton Mobile Service has been integrated with the Hilton Honors loyalty scheme which enables members to see a points summary and also book quickly as certain field will be populated already on the booking form.

For iPhone users there is a Web App version and combined with the GPS capabilities in iPhone users can also see a list of Hilton hotels in the vicinity with the distance calculated from the user’s current location.

The vice president of brand web sites at Hilton Hotels, Geraldine Calpin commented:

“By launching local mobile services for Hilton customers in the UK, we not only improve customer service, but create a new distribution channel for our products.”

According to Mobile Travel Technologies (MTT) this use of mobile travel services is expanding by twenty per cent per month. MTT founder and executive director, Gerry Samuels said:

“Mobile technology is playing an increasing role in new marketing and distribution strategies of major hotel chains. As consumers increasingly take advantage of the convenience of mobile to make bookings and make changes on-the-go, hotel chains are now seeing strong revenue growth as well as having a customer service advantage.”

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