Gone are the days when people used to stand in a queue to book their air tickets and wait for a reservation in their desired hotel. With the advent of technology, many industries are getting benefited and the travel industry is the one which is getting all the benefits with something additional.
Today, people want to plan their holidays in the easiest way possible and one such way goes via travel planner mobile app development.
When you have an idea of a travel planner app, the first thing in your mind is how much cost will be involved in the development process? It’s certainly the first question in the client’s mind once they plan to develop such an app.
Working on a travel project is not an easy task because it covers lots of things that should be determined during the app development process.
Before you dive into the travel planner app development process, be assured that you have the answers to these following questions:
What is the business goal?
What are the customers’ needs?
What basic features and functionality are required in an app?
How will success be measured?
If you have answers to the above-given question, then you can get a better idea about your project’s success and return on investment.
In this modern world, the travel planner app is considered as the best approach for businesses. From finding hotels & restaurants to booking the flights, the app just elevates your experience.
The travel industry is growing rapidly and quickly, all thanks to the emergence of mobile applications.
According to research, almost 80% of travelers use a mobile application for third travel needs. And it is a big reason to choose the travel app development for the travel business.
Here we are discussing a complete concept of the travel planner app that works on different aspects. So let’s start with the same.
How to create a mobile travel app in 5 steps?
Choose your app type: There is a need to opt the right type of app for your business needs like booking, accommodation booking, transport apps, and travel guides apps.
Competitor Research: You need to research your competitor’s mobile apps like advantages, disadvantages, etc. It will help you to understand the deep knowledge about your application and you will better understand what things you should consider during the app development process. Also, you need to consider readymade integrated travel APIs.
Opt a travel MVP features: It’s mandatory to consider the MVP features list in your app like user account, booking and payments, social sharing options, filters, and geo based search.
Find the Right travel app developers: You need to hire the right travel app development company that has expertise in building travel like app solutions because it’s a mandatory thing that impacts your application on large scale. You need to go through their skill set which will be a milestone in your app development requirement.
Enter the discovery phase: You need to define the complete concept of your travel app like what are the current trends, what are the scope and best solution, etc.
Develop the travel app: With the right app development partner, you need to develop your business application with the right UI-UX design, quality code, and a great feature list that impacts the user experience.
Features list
Here is the features’ list which should be included in a travel planner mobile app:
Travel Planning: This feature allows users to plan their trip in a systematic manner, with the help of features users can search for the destination, plan their journey, can get travel tips, e-ticketing, and can get info about activities.
Registration and sign up: This is a common feature in the travel planner mobile app that allows users to register themselves via email id and social channels and browse all the functionality of the application.
Search and Filter: This feature allows users to search and filter the data related to booking and other useful information such as location, date, cost, number of people, and additional services like parking, wifi, etc.
Listing information: With the help of this feature, users can find more relevant information about hotels and restaurants like photos, descriptions, available booking dates, customer reviews, and other things.
Navigation and maps: It is a basic feature in an app that provides info about the nearest location related to your trip and also provides a safer feel with Google maps and Apple maps integration which helps to get the right navigation.
In-app booking: With the help of these features users can make their bookings for hotels, flights, cabs, trains, etc. Users can also find more info related to deals and offers which make their travel booking more enjoyable.
Messaging channels: This feature facilitates the chats between customers and hotel representatives to directly ask and share the information. It can be inbuilt with a simple messaging option to satisfy the users for their problems.
Review System: This is an important feature in the travel app to recommend the services to other guests as they already form the services providers like hotels, with the help of features users can submit their feedback and recommend their services.
Advanced Features to add in a travel planner mobile app
Here are some most amazing advanced features which you should include in the travel planner mobile app:
Backpacking feature:
Backpacking apps are now in trends and users find cost-effective travel planning booking with unique solo travel needs. It will help such type users to provide relevant info about weather alerts, local unity stores, reasonably transport price accommodation, and other useful data in easy steps.
Expanse tracking: This is helpful in tracking the expenses during the traveling and users get the benefit to shortlist their extra spend simply.
Currency converter: It is a unique feature that converts the value of one currency to another in real-time. It helps users on their abroad vacation.
Voice Search: Most of the travelers use voice search during the traveling. This feature can make your app unique with inbuilt functionality as comparing the other traveling mobile application.
Cost of travel app development:
Creating a travel application is not an easy task. There are multiple factors that are essential to streamline travel mobile app development. These factors also affect the cost of development in the long run.
The travel application development cost depends on many things which include:
Platforms: Android, iOS, or any other mobile OS, cross platforms, etc.
Features: The features list you want to integrate into your travel application. More features mean more cost involvement.
Duration: The approx time you want to take in your app launch in the market.
Team Size: The number of developers who work on your app development project.
Theme: The type of theme you select is like a free or paid theme.
Location: The demographic you want to select for your app development like India, UK, USA, etc.
Normally companies charge hourly rates for app development. In India, the companies are charging $20 to $80 per hour, while in the USA these charges will be expensive to $50 to $150 per hour.
Demographics also play an important role in defining the cost of development, different demographics have different rates. There are some companies that are dealing in different countries and they charge a fixed amount so you need to clarify first.
If you want to develop it like a native app such as Android or iOS the estimated cost will be almost $35000 to $55000.
And if you go with Cross platforms then it will be more expensive, and the cost will range between $80,000 and more.
Technology stack required for Travel Apps
How to make money from your travel App.
So the first thing that comes to mind while developing the app is how to monetize the application.
More than 90% of the apps placed on Google Play Store are free according to Statista. It means most of the applications uploaded are supposed to be free in the marketplace. Once the app gets popular in the market, the app owners can follow different ways to monetize the app and harness the gain out of it.
App Advertising: This is one of the best sources of income via the travel app. The app offers advertising space for ads and you can show relevant ads like hotels, tour operators, flight bookings, or relevant industries. The advertiser pays the app owner to run ads over the app and access the user base. For example, the Trip Adviser offers such type sponsored listings for the advertisers and charges CTC for OTA and other suppliers.
Commission: In this business model, the app owner receives the commission on every transaction like bookings or payment made in the app. For example, bookings.com charges 10% to 30 % for every booking made.
Merchant model: In this model, the users book the hotel rooms in bulk via apps and get a discount as compared to regular booking charges like once you book the hotel charges you get $50 per night while you booking 100 rooms in bulk then the cost will be reduced to $30 per room. For example, Expedia rents room in bulk, and hotels offer cheap deals for customers.
Premium Model: In this business model users can access a limited feature list still to access advanced features the users need to get a pro version of the app.
App Purchase: It allows users to purchase extra travel services, and the vendors need to pay app owners for every sale.
