When someone decides to travel, it means going beyond normal boundaries. Exploring new and unknown places is always exciting, but with that comes a plethora of activities. Travel applications have played a significant role in recent decades to make traveling fun. Whether you’re booking flights, choosing accommodation, planning meals, exploring places, or getting guides, travel applications bring convenience to the palm of your hand. Kudos to these travel applications development when leaving for a trip, you only have to get up from the couch.
How are mobile apps transforming travel and tourism?
Travel apps undoubtedly catalyze the travel and tourism industry favorably. Travel applications have made all this possible, eliminating the tedious process of booking flights, roaming in a new city looking for hotels and not knowing which places to visit. People don’t have to think twice before planning a trip. You can book flights, choose the best hotel to stay, plan meals for different days, visit different destinations and much more just from your smartphone.
However, this transformation was not achieved overnight. It’s not even like a company developed an app and digitalized an entire industry. Today, various types of apps make traveling more enjoyable. Transport ticket booking apps provide their services while hotel booking apps facilitate accommodation services. Tour planning and management apps guide travelers, while fintech apps make local currency accessible.
Travel Application Market and Industry Forecasts
Before we discuss the various mobile apps that are uplifting the travel industry, let’s take a look at the statistics of the industry. The total revenue of the travel segment and industry is expected to reach a valuation of US$333.4 million this year. However, with travel applications facilitating trip planning, the industry is expected to project a CAGR of 11.05% and reach a valuation of US$507 by 2026.
Talking specifically about the point of interest i.e. travel application, in-app purchase revenue in the Travel segment is expected to reach USD 88.05 million in 2022. At the same time, revenue from paid apps in the same segment will reach $99.61 million.
Benefits of Having a Travel App for Your Travel & Tourism Business
Tourism is a growing industry with an interesting CAGR. So, if you are already in this industry, you must experience the peak. However, with this peak comes a significant change, which is digitization. Tourism is digitizing much faster than most other industries. To get ahead of the curve, you need to treat customers in a way that they care about.
Developing mobile apps for your business with the services you provide ensures a number of benefits for you. The benefits are listed below but are not limited to:
1. Provide better customer support
Whether you run a hotel, restaurant, or travel, your service support will bring in the customer. Mobile apps are a great resource for changing the quality of client service you provide. Communicate with your customers through the app, get their feedback, provide a rating feature, answer questions, answer FAQs, and more.
2. Reduce paperwork
Paperwork is one factor that makes a person think twice before planning a trip or choosing their services specifically. With your app, you can reduce or even eliminate paperwork from your process. Users won’t mind filling in their details while sitting on the couch in their living area. So, make your customers comfortable and turn them into your loyal clients.
3. Increase customer loyalty
With the presence of hundreds of similar businesses in the same market, retaining customers has never been more difficult. However, challenges bring with their solutions, and this is where the solution becomes digital. Your business mobile app can increase your customers’ loyalty to your business. Stay connected with your client base, send them attractive offers, wish them on their special days and invite them to visit.
4. Offer customized services
Offer your customers a tailored service. Through the application, you can get the specific requirements of your customers in advance and meet their expectations. Make necessary arrangements in their room, cook pre-requested food for your guest, treat the customer to the best seat in the travel van and much more.
5. Go to the site for any query
Provide all information and overview of your service on one platform. Help customers choose your service by improving their user experience. This will make it easier for customers to make decisions.
6. Acts as a powerful marketing tool
Your mobile app will act as a powerful marketing tool. Highlight all the information and services you provide in the app. Present your app innovatively in front of costumes and it will significantly promote your services among potential customers. After all, it’s information that everyone is looking for, not catchy headlines.
Must have travel app features
Each dedicated application should have its specific function according to its service. However, here are some features that should be available in every app, regardless of its dedicated service or sector:
1. Login/Register
There should be an option to create a profile in every application. Customers have different interests and creating a profile will help the app cater to them. Moreover, it will greatly help to preserve the identity of each user on the platform.
To read such awesome content please go through the website bolebah, get up to date with amazing information.
2. Search panel
Be it booking hotels, flights, navigation, travel, or any other application, it must include a search box. This feature will play a huge role in improving the user experience of the app.
3. Ratings and Reviews
Customers have the right to share their experiences with applications and services. Moreover, it is a useful medium for informing new users about the quality of services. So regardless of the type of app, the app must include rating and review features.
4. Offline access
It may not be possible to fully function without an internet connection, but every app should be usable in some way even when there is no network or connection. For example, a navigation application should at least show the way back home that the user has often searched for.
5. Messaging and Chatting
Messaging and chatting should be present in the application as a form of communication. If it is a transportation app, the user can talk to the driver. Similarly, if it is a hotel booking application, the user can contact the front desk in case of a query or request.
6. Hot Deal Alerts
Different apps have different hot offers for their customers but the user is not always in the app. So the app should have a feature to inform users about hot deals through push notifications.
7. Secure payment gateway
The application should be equipped with a secure payment gateway for making necessary payments. In addition, the payment partner should be reliable and well known to users.
How Much Does It Cost to Create a Travel App?
Attaching a price tag to app development is not possible because it is highly variable. Several elements and factors determine the cost of mobile app development. The cost of developing a tour and travel application will depend on:
- The country you are hiring developers from
- Features you want to instill in your app
- The time developers need to develop an application
- The platform you want to build your app for (iOS, Android, or both)
- Application launch time
- The type of theme you want to use (free or paid)
- App development team experience and pricing
However, the estimated cost to develop a basic travel application can range between $40,000 to $60,000.