OpenTable for iPad – The PR Lesson for Travel Businesses

While some travel sites still worry about doing business online the old fashioned way, OpenTable gives a lesson of forward thinking, business strategy, and ultimate, engrossing mobile engagement. It’s a bold move, but the right one, for any modern travel business to look ahead, and adapt to technology innovations that shape the future of communications.

What could be more powerful than instantaneous access to the things you want or need from anywhere? This is a short story: all you have to imagine is a trusted companion with the ability to find, give directions to, and secure your momentary culinary fancies. The travel guide is dead. Long live the travel guide. But this time, the king has not only new clothes, but also special powers. Forget social media for a minute, OpenTable is not a social media proposition. What this fine company has to offer today is an app for the iPad. You know, that handy-dandy device recently launched by Apple, that beats any other portable communications and entertainment device ever conceived.

What’s more impressive is OpenTable’s speed to adapt, business intelligence, and media approach to raise awareness about such issues – a marketing move that should be scrutinized and analyzed by any serious online travel entity. Playing the social media game is fun, and rewarding so many times, but in the end, the game has no meaning if there are no winners.

Another aspect you should analyze, dear online travel business (to paraphrase OpenTable’s Caroline Potter) is this company’s respect for its customers. It’s apparent, even from simple statements like this:

Developed in close collaboration with Sequence, the OpenTable iPad app incorporates all the unique features iPhone users have come to know and love while putting even more information at diners’ fingertips. Where we go from here – and where you dine — is up to you, dear iPad user.

Brilliant writing, that comes from the heart. Now that’s what it takes to become a successful company. Ask for user feedback, heck, beg for user feedback if you must, but don’t act cocky, don’t think that you have it all figured out! Because you DON’T. Ask OpenTable. I bet they will tell you that they get hundreds of suggestions each day, some harsh critique. And they learn every day as well. This is how great innovation comes to being.

DKC PR is the pr agency that works with this brilliant innovative company.