Until a few years ago, a traveler couldn't leave home without a credit card; Today, she can't leave home without a smartphone.

The smartphone is pervasive and the use of the mobile device by consumers to address and enhance their travel needs makes it an area for focus for Samsung's content and services business.

"Travel and navigation are among the key uses among smartphone users across Asia so travel is an amazing fit for mobile," said Maya Hari, who is Head of lifestyle, content & services for Samsung Asia, based in Singapore.

 "Key trends we see in travel from the mobile context are content curation, recommendation and location-based services (taking information and making it relevant to the location where the traveler is), said Maya.

Her division, which looks after travel as well as social, fashion, photography, food and shopping services across South-east Asia & Oceania, partners with key travel content providers and app developers including start-ups to bring interesting information and services to the Samsung consumer.

"The mobile device is increasingly a means for people  to enjoy and experience amazing content and apps. The end goal is about consumer experience and that's about content and sharing."

Maya sees many possibilities for travel integration on mobile. "People want curated content that's personalized. The area of curation, recommendation and location-based is a strong fit for travel."

Asked to cite a couple of examples of good mobile practices in travel, Maya cites the hospitality apps tackling end to end customer service including points redemption" as well as premium airlines' apps for strong mobile commerce experience.

"It's incredibly easy to book and I think they've succeeded in making customers loosen their wallet to pay for tickets that cost quite a lot. I've bought tickets via mobile apps at least five times and I'm never going back to the browser, so as an m-commerce platform, it's pretty powerful."

Maya said what the smartphone has done is enable people to become more spontaneous when it comes to travelling. "The amounts of planning people have to do before a trip is much reduced now because we know when we get to a place, there is a taxi booking service we can use on our device, recommended restaurants we can go to with apps and more.

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