Glenn Strachan may have been driving from his hometown of Washington, D.C., to New York, but his mind was on a future trip to Michigan to visit his daughter.
So while in the car, the 53-year-old information technology consultant compared airfares on Kayak, booked a flight on AirTran Airways, made a rental car reservation, studied hotel reviews on TripAdvisor and picked a place to stay — all through his iPhone.
“I had the time, and I wasn’t going to be at a desktop, and I really needed to get things done, plus I’m planning other trips,” said Strachan, who added that he doesn’t endorse using a mobile phone while driving. “I’m constantly making airline reservations. It’s just so much easier from my phone than waiting to be at a desktop.”
Strachan, who earned million-mile status on two airlines, could be the archetype of an emerging segment of traveler: the smart-phone-toting business road warrior or vacationer whose mobile device is an indispensable travel agent, concierge and problem solver.
Within this group, there are signs that travelers are shifting their bookings to the very last minute thanks to mobile devices, scouting cheap airfares on Twitter that require travel within a few days or waiting until after arriving at a destination to find a hotel.
The early tech adopter and the business traveler are longtime kindred spirits, as executives were toting BlackBerrys before the iPhone and other Web-enabled devices entered the mainstream. Norm Rose, senior technology and corporate market analyst at PhoCusWright, said his firm’s research shows 75 percent of frequent business travelers — those making at least five trips a year — are smart-phone owners. Roughly half of frequent leisure travelers have smart phones.
“The key thing is the fact that the smart phone, as a category, has a much larger population of users who are using the…