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Thanks to COVID for changing our travel world forever! It helped us innovate more in the digital space and helped us transform the travel experience forever.
Growing up, did you ever imagine that you’ll have the comfort of booking hotels, hostels, or motels from the comfort of your home? No, right? I never imagined it. But, here we are!
The travel industry is thriving like none other since we got over the pandemic and it is very likely to even grow in the coming years. This hunger to travel and explore places gave immense growth to plenty of hotel booking applications. According to research by Business of Apps, the revenue generated by these apps was more than 60% of what was achieved in the previous fiscal year.
These apps offer travelers a convenient platform to browse, book, and manage their hotel stays, and they provide hotel owners with an effective way to reach a broader audience. If you are wondering about how to create a hotel booking app and how to start online hotel booking business around it, you are at the right place. In this guide, I will delve into the world of hotel booking app development and cover some important aspects around it.
Table of Content
- Benefits of Hotel Booking App
- Types of Hotel Booking Application
- Hotel Booking App Development Process
- Marketing Strategies
- How To Start Online Hotel Booking Business
- Conclusion
You must be wondering why you should invest in hotel booking app development and what it does for you. So, let's start with the benefits of hotel booking apps.
Benefits of Hotel Booking Apps
For Users
- Using hotel booking applications users can search for hotels from the comfort of their homes.
- Features like user reviews, feedback, location, costs, etc., will help users to make more informed decisions
- Multiple payment options will help users and hoteliers to have easy transactions and communicate effectively with each other.
For Hoteliers
- Hoteliers will be able to consistently find guests around the year without much hassle. So, hotels which are small and are mostly used to staying busy during holidays will have a huge profit. This profit in turn will help you earn some commission too as a hotel booking app owner.
- Hoteliers will have the advantage of getting rid of all the paperwork. Thanks to your application. Meaning you have a chance to add a subscription model in your app and earn based on it from the hoteliers. More on this later.
- With the help of your application’s features you can provide easy check-in and check-out options for your users. Good service will not only help hotels, but will help you to have more users on your platform.
Types of Hotel Booking Applications
There are multiple types of hotel booking applications which you can focus on. Now, depending on your needs you can either focus on having features in your application which caters to all the types or you can select any one. Let’s talk about different types of hotel booking applications available in the market, how to start hotel booking business, and which one you should focus on.
Hotel Chain Applications
These types of applications focus on the particular hotel chains and are designed to cater only to the users of that hotel. For example: Doubletree by Hilton and Marriott. If you are focusing on building applications like these, you should reach out to these hotel chains and pitch them your idea. However, since this market is already very competitive it is better to not invest in this.
Last Minute Hotel Booking Applications
This kind of application solely caters to customers who often make last minute travel plans. For example: some professionals who are not sure of the holidays they have and plan to hit the road last minute and book on the way. For users like these your hotel booking application is likely to come to the rescue. You can invest in on demand hotel booking app development which caters to this audience, but remember your target audience is very likely to narrow down.
Hotels Booking Applications in Advance
Can you think of users who often tend to organize things beforehand and have everything planned? Advance hotel booking application is their rescue. However, similar to the above issue, this too is likely to narrow down your target audience.
Hybrid Hotel Booking Application
This is the most common type of hotel booking application which you will find online. Its perfect amalgamation of above two applications and can help your audience to book hotels easily. Moreover, it will also help you to cater to wider audience needs and have more comprehensive hotel chains on our application.
Wondering where to begin development and how to start hotel booking business? Reach out to us. Our team of expert developers can help you with hotel booking app development and provide complete breakthrough of hotel booking app development cost.
Next up, let’s see in detail about how to start with the hotel booking app development process for a hybrid hotel booking application.
Hotel Booking App Development Process
Market Research and Analysis
Start with carrying out complete market research and thorough analysis to have a better understanding of your target audience, market, and competitors. This research will work as a strong base in defining the future of your product and better bridge the gap between the users and market. It will also help you to understand what your users require and how your product will solve this issue.
Research Your Competitors
Once you have finished market research, you will have a list of competitors in your field. Now, study your competitors and prepare a sheet with all the data regarding them. You can study about their business model, subscription fees, features they have and why, how is the overall user experience of the application, are some of the things you can focus on.
Putting this data together will help you to define the strengths and weaknesses your competitors have over you. In turn, this information can help you to define your unique selling point and cater to your users in a much better way.
Define Your USP
Carrying out your market research and competitor analysis will automatically help you to define your unique selling point. It can be in terms of features, user experience, the market you want to target, the kind of services you want, or any specific type of hotels you prefer to have on your platform. Having predefined USP will help you to serve your customers better and also help you to have a strong and condensed business model which in turn can help you to have better ROI.
Define the Scope of Your Work
Having clear USP will help you to define the scope of your work for your MVP model. Come up with the list of features which are crucial for your application to build an MVP product and how it will help define the development stages. In this phase, along with features, you also need to define which platform you plan to target; Android or iOS and why? Since this is an MVP product, it is better to start with targeting on one platform first and then scale your application at a larger level. Reason being, it will help you to have a better understanding of the better after the launch and also understand users’ needs.
Define Your App Features
Now lets see some of the common and important features for hotel owners and users which will help you to build your MVP.
1. For Hoteliers
Hoteliers should be able to create and manage their hotel profiles. They should be able to add some vital information regarding their hotels which can help users to make informed decisions regarding their stay.
It is essential to have this feature so hotel owners can add, update, and delete room availability, rates, and special holiday offers.
Hotel owners should be able to have real-time updates and the ability to confirm or reject reservations to help manage their customers.
A system to manage payments and billing records so that hotel owners can efficiently check everything at their fingertips.
2.For Users
Travelers should be able to create and manage their profiles to have a more personalized experience of your application.
Advanced search options, including filters for price, location, and amenities so that they can make more informed decisions about their accommodation. Additionally, they should also be able to add some hotels in their favorites.
Comprehensive hotel listings with high-quality images and detailed descriptions to help make users decisions and also understand the type of experience they are likely to have.
A seamless booking process with real-time updates on reservation status will help users to not miss on their accommodation details and if there are any changes too.
Providing users with multiple and secure payment processing for reservations and in-app purchases will enhance their overall application experience and they are likely to retain.
Access to genuine reviews and ratings to help other travelers make informed choices and will also help you as a business to decide which hotel should stay on your platform.
Advance Features for Hotel Booking App
Leverage the power of AI/ML and your users’ search history to better recommend hotels to your users. You can provide personalized recommended hotel lists to your users which will help you stay ahead of your competitors. Users are very likely to rely on recommendation lists when provided. When users see things like “Cater for you” or “Best Sellers” they are very likely to click on it and immediately book it.
With the holiday season around the corner, you are very likely to have tough competition and maybe lose some money. This feature will work as a savior for your business! Rely on the power of your users’ history and make an algorithm which helps predict the forecast of accommodation, price, and availability depending on users’ location. Furthermore, notify users about the same and gain their attention to book the hotels faster. A feeling of urgency oftentimes works in gaining new users and also having your loyal customers book faster.
Virtual travel agents will help you to cater to your users’ needs 24/7 and help resolve some of the common concerns they might have in regards with their stay. Being around 24/7 for your users will help you stay ahead of your competitors as you are likely to provide great service to your users.
This feature can really come handy when users are traveling and also when you are planning to scale your application at global level. Based on users’ location, they should be able to use the application in their local or preferred language and currency. It will not only provide great user experience, but will also help you to reach a wider audience.
User Experience Design
Once you have a list of features which are essential for your MVP, your next step is to design the product. Design has a crucial role to play in order to fulfill user and business needs. If you are already outsourcing the work to a hotel booking app development company, you are already at the advantage. They will have a team of professionals who will help you design an application with a great user experience.
Define Your Tech-stack
After the design your next phase is to develop an application. To do so, you need to define the tech-stack for your application depending on the market you have planned to target first. It is always better to start with the iOS market as since the ecosystem is closed it is easy for you to quickly develop your MVP and get it to the market.
If you are planning to build an application regardless of the platform, reach out to us. Our experienced developers and designers will help you with hotel booking app development using the latest tech-stack.
Testing Your Product
Carry out extensive testing on your product before the final deployment, because you don’t want your users to have a bad experience and use an application which is full of bugs. Providing an application which is bug-free is really essential as it reflects the branding of your company too. Working with hotel booking app development company like us will give you an advantage compared to your competitors as we have a team of professionals who will carry out advance testing on your application.
Launch Your Application
Once you have completely tested your application, you have reached the final stage i.e. launching your application. Launch your application on the App Store and Play Store to reach your audience.
Marketing Strategies
Your work doesn’t get over with the launch. Once you have successfully deployed your application, your next step is to market your application in order to reach a wider audience and have ROI. Below are some of the common tactics to market your application and start building your loyal customer base.
Collaboration with Various Hotels
Onboard hotels which align with your business values and you think can help you gain some profits too. You can collaborate with these hotels in a way that each of you can earn some profit. For example: you can provide a certain amount of discounts to users who are booking their stay in an X named hotel. This will help you to have customers as well as loyal hotel owners who will likely stay on your platform. It will be a win-win situation for you, your users, and also hotel owners.
Social Media Marketing
This is again the most common way of marketing your application and services. A hotel booking application is likely to have a larger target audience with a varied age range. So, being on social media platforms makes complete sense. You can also focus on various social media ad campaigns which are targeted to certain demographics and audiences.
Influencer Marketing
This type of marketing is very closely tied with social media too. If you find an influencer which closely aligns with your brands’ value then you can collaborate with them and reach out to your target audience. When selecting an influencer consider factors like who their audience is, how they will benefit your company, what is their brand value, etc. because it needs to profit your business too.
How to Start Online Hotel Booking Business
Next up, let’s talk about certain ways you can monetize your application and have return on investment along with some profits.
Service Fee
This is the most common way to charge money from hotels on every booking made through your application. This method is used by plenty of hotel booking applications who are likely to be your competitors. Fixate a certain percentage based on a certain amount of payment.
Subscription Charges
Introduce a subscription model in your application and provide a certain set of features based on the model that hoteliers and users select. It will help you to have a loyal customer base which wants to use your service. You can introduce 2 to 3 tiers based on your business model and have it at your advantage.
In-App Advertising
In-app ads are very common to have better service. You can run ads in collaboration with various hotels and whoever pays more and provides better service stays longer on the top. Hoteliers will have to pay a little extra to stay on the top if they want to. This type of model will help you to earn some extra money and provide good service to your customers.
Over to You
Developing a hotel booking app is a complex yet rewarding endeavor when you partner with a hotel booking app development company. By following a well-defined development process, focusing on user experience, and addressing data security and compliance, you can create a valuable platform that benefits both travelers and hotel owners. Keep an eye on emerging industry trends and continuously innovate to remain competitive in the ever-evolving travel and hospitality landscape.
If you want help with hotel booking app development or want to know how to build a hotel booking app, you can reach out to us. Rely on our services and leverage the knowledge of our professionals who can help you to stay ahead of your competitors and help you build the business of your dreams.
