Mobile technology is getting advanced with every passing day. The demand for smartphones and tablets has increased a lot in the market because everyone prefers to have these gadgets with them. These days most of the travelers make use of smartphones and they keep looking for the options that are easier to book their hotels before they travel to a certain place. That is the reason the hotel booking apps like Air BnB have gained a lot of success. So in the present scenario, if you get a feature-rich, efficient and easy to use the mobile application, you can run a great business. If you stay on the right track, your business can expand exponentially after a few months.
Why is the hotel booking app development important?
Following are some of the reasons that show the importance of a mobile app if you want to become successful in your hotel business:
-Easy Communication Via Multiple Channels
Multiple channel communication plays a very important role in improving the experience of your guests as it establishes a smooth link between the guests and the management of the hotel. A mobile app that is dedicated to a hotel business is not just restricted to one channel; rather there are multiple channels offered for making communication more effective! In these apps, the integration of various communication channels is allowed, e.g. push notifications, direct connections on social media, etc.
-Competitive Benefit
According to research, more than around 70% of the hotel owners are aware of the benefits that a hotel booking application can help them a lot in growing their business. However, in real life, only around one-fourth of the hotel business owners are getting the benefit of such an appealing opportunity. (These stats are from 2017; they must have increased by now).
-Extreme Fame Of M-Commerce
These days, mobile-commerce is one of the immensely trending subjects in the market. M-commerce is facilitating the users in managing everything including shopping, booking of movie tickets, ordering your food, etc. It is not just a user-friendly way but it also provides a great opportunity for reaching out more number of people to create multiple channels of sale at a single time that can be very favorable for your business.
-Intensification Of Brand Loyalty
If you offer an efficient and reliable application for hotel booking, then it surely strengthens up your brand and customer loyalty. Also, the guests become able to give reviews about the hotels. You can also utilize the functions like Guest Loyalty Program (GLP), loyalty bonuses and hotel ratings to strengthen your brand loyalty.
Analysis of Online Traveling Market
The hotel booking apps have a direct link with the travelers because mostly the tourists and other visitors want to make sure to get a confirmation about their living place before they reach their destination. Therefore, it is also important to keep yourself updated with the stats of tourism apps and bookings. Eighty percent of the reservations that are made at the last minute are done through mobile apps. Moreover, around forty-five percent of the OTA bookings are done on mobile phones. On mobile devices, the conversion rates are supposed to be five times greater as compared to the web. These stats show that mobile applications are progressively becoming the definitive and ultimate way of booking.
Well-known Players in Hotel Booking Niche
Before starting any business or expanding your existing business, it is important to analyze your competitors as well as the players already rocking up in the market. Following are some of the best and the most well-known applications for hotel booking:
- Air BnB
- Marriot Rewards
- TripAdvisor
- Skyscanner
Familiarity with the Business Models
Before you begin with your hotel booking app development, you need to need, discriminate and make choice out of the available business models. There are four main types of business models:
- Aggregator Model
- Dedicated Model
- Merchant Model
- Advertising Model
You should be clear which model you want to choose. Do it before you get started with the development process of your app!
Choose the Type of Your Booking App
It is important to be clear about the type of app that you want to choose. For example, your app can be an OTA (Online Travel Agency) app, a hotel aggregation app or a hotel chain application. You must be able to differentiate between the various types of apps and choose the most relevant and suitable booking app type for you.
Choose Your Distribution Area
This is another unavoidable factor that must be kept under consideration and should not be ignored. You must work out on it so that the hotel booking mobile app can be developed in the right way. It is, of course, better and more profitable to launch the app and run it internationally. However, in this case, you would have to invest more amounts of money and time. You can also take a start on a small scale and then get your app expanded and updated on a regular basis. Another advantage of starting on a small scale is that you can test the application in the local market and check how well it is working, and fix the issues in case they arise.
Features of Your Hotel Booking Mobile App
Following are the main hotel booking app features that must be included in your application:
- User Account
- Hotel Account
- Search Feature
- Hotel Information
- Booking and Cancellation
- View Hotel Rooms
- Payment Gateway
- Booking Receipt
- Push Notifications
- Instant Messaging
You can get lots of other features added to your application depending upon your budget and other factors.
Design of the Application
As far as your hotel booking app design is concerned, you can either let the development team create it for you, or you can provide them the prototypes and a design sample to give them an idea about what kind of design you want. Make sure to keep the design decent, but appealing at the same time. It is important to fulfill the requirements of UI and UX and the app should be easy to use.
How much does it cost to build a hotel booking app?
A good hotel booking application would cost you around $15,000 to $50,000. The cost usually depends upon the design of the app, its features, and specifications. Also, the cost can vary on the basis of the number of days of delivery in which you expect your application to be completed. The cost can be negotiated before you hand over the project to the team of designers and developers.
How do you market your hotel booking app?
There are several ways to market your hotel booking app. They include social media marketing, sending newsletters and emails, getting lots of reviews (on play-store, app store, and website), and blogging. There can be a number of other ways as well, but these are some of the most effective ways to market your application.
It is a long process to develop a hotel booking application. It must be an organized process and everything should be done properly and neatly. Therefore, you must choose the right company to get your app developed. Clustox has the best team of designers, developers, project managers, and marketers. They can help you create your app and carry out each and every step. You do not have to worry about anything after handing over your project to Clustox from the phases of designing and development to testing and marketing.