How Mobile Technology is Changing World Travel

Do you use your smartphone to help make traveling easier? If you do, then your part of a huge growing trend. The How Mobile Technology is Changing World Travel infographic from MyDestination.com shares some interesting statistics when it comes to traveling. 

Back in 1903 when the Wright Brothers first took flight in their first fixed winged aircraft, little could anyone have imagined what travel would become. Fast forward to 2012 and the internet has revolutionised travel – along with communication – with the birth of the smartphone. But just how much as this palm-held device influenced and changed our travelling habits? And just how far has travel–based mobile technology still got to go?

There’s a lot of information gathered from many different sources in this one, which is one reason it’s so long.  The use of mobile devices to plan your travel and the use of them during your travel are definitely growing, and this infographic does a great job of helping the readers get some basic understanding of what’s going on.

A few issues with the data visualization designs though:

• The doughnut charts at the top are hard to read because the edges are so thin. A thicker area around the circles would have been easier to see.

• How can the UK have 129% Mobile Penetration? By definition that number can’t be higher than 100%.

• The visualization using the airplane silhouette is challenging. There should be 10 windows to easily visualize the 74%. Readers think in tens, and it’s hard to understand a portion of six windows. I’ll bet the 54% color fill is close, but I have no way to figure out if it’s accurate.

• Again, readers think in tens, so don’t show the “…traffic for 78% of travel sites” as a visualization of seven computer monitors, use ten.

• At the bottom should be a copyright, and the URL to the original infographic landing page.

My Destination is also asking readers for suggestions for their next infographic design:

Are you an avid smartphone user abroad? Can’t imagine life without Facebook on the move? Don’t have a smartphone and not intending on caving in? We want to hear from you! Whether you are embracing the mobile travel revolution or just love travel, we want to know what is getting you talking. We’re also on the lookout for ideas for our next infographic special. Email [email protected] with any suggestions or tweet us @MyDestination using #TravAndTech.

Thanks to Oli for sending in the link!