The chain, which is Britain’s largest hotel brand with over 650 budget hotels, reports that its app has been downloaded more than two million times since its initial launch in January 2011. For the recent relaunch, the focus was on improving convenience and the overall user experience.

“The increase in conversion rate can be directly attributed to ease of use,” said Adam Levene, chief strategy officer at Grapple, London.

“When we started this project, we set out to create not only the most seamless hotel booking app, but the most seamless booking app full stop,” he said.  

“By meticulously understanding the customer journey, and monitoring the performance of the previous app, we’ve created the most intuitive transactional experience, making it the easiest and fastest channel for customers to book from.”

Premier Inn worked with Grapple to redesign the app.

A personalized experience
The Premier Inn iPhone app was responsible for more than 100,000 bookings in 2012, making it one of the hotel brand’s most important channels.

The app was revamped to make it even easier for guests to manage their booking on the move. It offers personalization through My Premier Inn, features a highly intuitive navigation that anticipates the needs of customers, a seamless booking flow, Trip Advisor ratings, the ability to add extras such as breakfast and an opportunity to easily book repeat stays.

“When we started the project, we went back to basics to really understand what customers want when booking a hotel,” Mr. Levene said. “We remained considerate of adding only features that make transacting as frictionless as possible.

“Features such as integrated Trip Advisor ratings are subtle, but are proven methods of helping to inform the customer’s transaction decision,” he said.

“Likewise, the inclusion of the ‘My Premier Inn’, the accounts section that allows registered customers to transact more easily, ensures that we’re tailoring an experience that is personalized and rewarding to the most loyal customers.”

Driving loyalty
The app is aimed at both business and leisure customers.

The company is also investing further in mobile with the launch of its first app for the iPad.

Premier Inn views the apps as important steps in its efforts to make guests lives’ easier throughout their stay and to drive customer loyalty.

The chain’s mobile efforts are the latest example of hotels, airlines and other travel-related companies are embracing mobile as way to reach on-the-go mobile users with services that make bring a new level of convenience to planning a trip.

Going forward, it is likely to some of these brands will extend their mobile offerings to play an even bigger role in users’ travel experiences.

“Premier Inn, as the UK’s largest hotel chain, and in fact most hotel brands across the globe, have an opportunity to use smartphone and tablet technology to completely transform the guest experience,” Mr. Levene said.

“We’re just at the start of our journey with Premier Inn,” he said. “The relaunched application for iPhone and iPad are excellent tools to encourage and aid the guest right up until the point of arrival, however the opportunity to extend the use of mobile goes right through the end-to-end guest experience, from automated check-in to providing a platform for feedback as soon as a guest checks out.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York