Restaurants missing out on massive mobile opportunity

18 April 2011

Restaurants missing out on massive mobile opportunity

Livebookings launches Pocket Diner to help restaurants reach mobile diners

Restaurants are missing a huge opportunity by not catering to diners that use their mobile devices to locate, research, reserve, and review restaurants. According to new research by Livebookings, only 2.6% of restaurants have a website that is optimized for mobile browsing even though mobile browser usage continues to grow.

With 50% of the US population predicted to own a smartphone by the end of 2011 and 14% using their smartphone to look for restaurants, those that don’t enable mobile reservations are missing out on a massive opportunity to fill tables. To address this gap, Livebookings is launching a new mobile platform for restaurants: Pocket Diner helps restaurateurs increase revenue and profitability by maximizing all opportunities to convert browsers into diners. 

Pocket Diner by Livebookings was built with mobile reservations in mind, complimenting the restaurant’s existing web presence and creating a mobile optimized version suitable for all devices including the iPhone, BlackBerry smartphones, and mobile phones running the Android OS. With 8 out of 10 consumers preferring to use their smartphones rather than downloading specific apps, Pocket Diner is ideal for those who want to browse or book their restaurant of choice on a mobile site. 

" Restaurants cannot afford to ignore the power of mobile. On average, we see 15% of a restaurant’s website traffic come from a mobile browser – much higher than the 4% average for all websites,” said Andris Berzins, Chief Marketing Officer at Livebookings. “The restaurant industry, like other service sectors, needs to respond to changing consumer behaviors and embrace mobile technology to deliver a high quality user experience."

Restaurants are already benefiting from Livebookings’ mobile platform, including leading restaurants 21 Club and Russian Tea Room in New York City and leading UK chains Strada, Giraffe, and Café Rouge. Stephanie Rice, Marketing Coordinator at Giraffe explains, “Pocket Diner is ideal for restaurants that understand the value of their online presence and want to optimize it to take advantage of the new generation of mobile web users.”

Fully integrated with Livebookings’ leading reservations and marketing platform, restaurant managers can now access all bookings through the internet in one central place. Other key features include a real-time content management system, which gives restaurant owners a branded URL and allows them to manage and customize information on their site such as menus, maps, deals, social media links, and photos.  

For more information on Livebookings, please visit: www.livebookings.com
For more information on Pocket Diner, please visit: www.pocketdiner.net

1 Livebookings survey of 300 US and UK restaurant websites
2 Nielsen
3 Morgan Stanley, ChangeWave
4 Adobe survey

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Notes to editors:

About Livebookings

Livebookings makes restaurants and diners click. We operate the world’s only global, web-based restaurant reservations and marketing service, delivering over one million diners every month to 8,000 restaurants including Gordon Ramsay Holdings, Tantris as Steve Hanson’s B.R. Guest Restaurant Group, Jean Georges’ Spice Market, Håkan Swahn's, Aquavit, Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles, Marcus Samuelsson's Red Rooster, and major national casual chains such as Outback Steakhouse’s Bonefish Grill. Our reservations tools enable restaurants to provide their diners with a free, easy-to-use online bookings service, to manage those reservations efficiently and to collect valuable customer data. Our marketing services ensure restaurants can run promotions and deals and execute online marketing campaigns to attract and retain their customers. Our consumer restaurant reservations website, Bookatable.com, along with our unparalleled network of 300 distribution partners, including Bloomberg, lastminute.com, and Ticketmaster, ensure we can spread news of deals far and wide and help our restaurant customers attract new business.

Headquartered in London, with offices across Europe and the USA and customers in 23 countries, Livebookings is the largest online reservations provider in Europe, focused on making restaurants more profitable and dining out more pleasurable.