Hotel Booking App Development: Must Have Features and Cost Estimation

The travellers worldwide are becoming friendlier with the upcoming technologies and so if you’re looking for guidance on how to improve the hospitality industry, consider these recent trends to catch-up with your tech-savvy audience hotel booking app development is the best practices.travellers.

Considering the truth that 60% of customers are more likely to opt for a smartphone-enabled hotel over a fabulous location, we have only one thing to say to you: go for it!

How much does it cost to create a hotel booking mobile app design, and what features should hotel booking app development have to increase occupancy rates and justify mobile app development expenses? When it comes to mobile app for hotel booking, entrepreneurs treat mobile as another opportunity to simplify the booking process and subsequently fail to deliver the ultimate guest experience. Guess why?

According to a recent estimate, the travel and tourism industry is expected to contribute about $817.54 billion by the year 2020 from $470 billion in 2014. In fact, according to the statistic of the Travelport Digital, 53% millennials admitted that they use the hotel booking mobile applications to search for proper accommodation.

Hotel booking statistics

In this article, We would like to discardable about Top 8 Consideration for the Business Owner who is looking for

  1. Types of Hotel Business Models
  2. Common mistakes made by customers in Hotel Booking Apps
  3. A Case Study of Booking.com hotel booking app
  4. Benefits of having a Hotel Booking App
  5. Hotel Booking App Development Features
  6. Enhanced Features of Hotel booking app development
  7. How to make a successful booking app
  8. Creating a custom Hotel Booking App
  9. Technology Stack for the development of a hotel booking app
  10. How much does it cost to develop a hotel booking app

Every Hotel and Hospitality business had strategic way organisation with Internationally proven standards to manage and run the show, so it’s essential that before we develop an online hotel booking mobile app design.

Types of Hotel Business Models

The business owner needs to understand the kind of business model his business is working and decide on a specific business model work online hotel booking system. So, it varies from the Merchant Model, Aggregator Model, Advertising Model, and Dedicated Model. Let’s understand each of them:

  1. Merchant Model: What happens with this hotel booking mobile app is that the app owner will have an agreement with the hotel to get the rights to several rooms then there you get on discount due to the wholesale rate. Which you can sell these rooms to the guest through your application. Now the price of each of the room and hotel can be very flexible and may change as per the travel demands. Expedia is the one who uses this model very effectively. Which controls a considerable part of world digital travel business, i.e. 17% and it offers myriad choice in more than 200 countries across the world.
  2. Aggregate Model: This is the one best widely used a model with simple logic. These types of apps are connected to online booking services, hence as a user starts looking for a place for his/her stay, a unified list of hotels are displayed to him but with several price options from numerous reservation platforms. You click on the possibility that satisfies your needs, and the app will redirect you to the application of the preferred booking platform. This model works for audiences that like comparing prices to get the best deal possible. Booking.com and HotelLook are the best examples that use this model.
  3. Advertising Model: This model is similar to the aggregate model because it also involves listing rooms at many different hotels. This is the third party type which allows making money on your hotel booking app design. Hotel booking app development that uses this model to earn on a pay-per-click basis. The owner will get the specified amount on each user that has been redirected on to hotel apps. These sites display buttons that let users go to the booking page of an accommodation provider. On an aggregator platform, customers can read what other travellers say about the accommodation and view ratings. When an accommodation provider gets a lead, the platform gets a fee for converting the user to a lead. The best example of this model is Tripadvisor; it gets most profits from advertising models as it charges cost-per-click.
  4. Dedicated Model: If you are already established business who have their apps and a lot of repeat customers, then this business model may be the best fit for you. These hotel mobile apps development aren’t just for scheduling purpose, as they also take in special requests made by users during their stay. Your app can offer extra perks, such as concierge services and loyalty programs. You can think of many more ideas, like including car rentals or booking tables at a restaurant. In other words, you’re free to implement any features you like to help your clients get the best service imaginable. The best example of this model is Hilton

Common mistakes made by customers in Hotel Booking Apps development

A reservation made on a hotel’s booking app and a booking portal attempt almost the same goals:

  • making sales
  • increasing awareness
  • gaining customer loyalty
  • Increasing profits.

Wondering how to make an online hotel booking app and reach all of these goals? We’ll tell you about typical flaws in reservation system/booking portal development and provide tips to dodge them.

  • They execute a booking module “because everyone already has it.”
    Solution: First, you need to know your specific customers. The only guarantee of profitability of internet support is web analytics data. Studying your audience and your application is the only way you can efficiently increase profitability.
  • They don’t pay attention to the preferences of their hotel booking app development company.
    Solution: Look for a complete digital marketing agency with experience working with hotels that can help you to increase your sales.
  • They ignore the analysis of pointers (both visitors and bookings).
    Solution: A bet on advertising in search engines, getting into the top 10 in search results, and getting a large number of visitors to the site is a critical success circumstance, but it’s not yet an indicator of RoI. You should examine real bookings via your application module as well.
  • They think that an overpriced site means a professional one.
    Solution: Grants in web analytics and useful functionality pay off — not in fashionable tools. So make sure to stress these two things.

Benefits of having a Hotel Booking mobile App for a Hotel Business 2019

If you’re developing a hotel Booking app, then you are benefiting as a business owner in well organising and improved bookings. Yes, Here are a few surprises to check.

Benefits-of-hotel-booking-app

  • Easies front Office Tasks  – A hotel booking system will provide the real-time status of the hotel rooms. Front desk staff can draw the booking directly on their front desk console and update them with complete ease. Even you can have Dynamic Room Allocation Manager, which automatically allocates rooms to guests by scanning through various parameters, such as cleanliness, availability, occupancy, and so on.
  • Authorizes Distribution – Mobile app for Hotel booking software development allows hotels to be present in the global marketplace in real-time. As competition is extremely stiff in the hospitality industry, and your guests have numerous hospitality options when they are travelling – B&B’s, hostels, hotels, and soon to stay ahead of the competition, you need to assure that your hotels are as visible as possible. The hotel booking software, your hotel can manage all the channels – OTA and GDS. Also, with the booking software, your hotel can handle all the channels via one interface, therefore maintaining their room inventory and rate parity uniformly across all channels via one platform. This helps to clarify operations for your reservations team and also ensures that issues such as double or overbooking are eliminated.
  • Improves guest reservations – Many OTA’s now enhance their site by offering free cancellations or changes in the booking up to a specific date. If your hotel doesn’t have its booking system and has to deal with different vendors manually, this can create a lot of confusion in bookings and result in huge losses. An integrated hotel booking software system enables data to be synced via all systems, so any reservation that is cancelled or changed via the OTA gets updated in real-time.
  • Increases multi-tasking – With booking system, a hotel with minimal staff can effectively manage several tasks simultaneously. They can handle group check-ins, check out of other guests, confirm reservations, and so on all at the same time.
  • Centralises hotel Management – The booking system with a centralised approach helps to keep everyone informed. Housekeeping can update rooms which are ready for check-in the front desk, in turn, inform which rooms have been checked out and tasks can be assigned quickly and easily. This guarantees complete transparency and reduces the chances of any crucial information being lost due to lack of communication.

If you talk in point of all the users of the app like the customer, hotel, travel Agent, app business owner

  1. To Customer: They get many perks like Security, Convenience, Discounts, Efficiency, Reliability, Best value for money, and whatnot. It’s a one-stop resolution (the entire trip can be arranged from the app itself).
  2. To Hotel: It’s beneficial to draw direct bookings as you can sell at higher rates. Then there is a lot more like, Automation, User-Data, Direct Spread out, Brand Promise, Customer Faith.
  3. To Travel Agent: You can give aid to your business as an app allow for Newmarket exploration, unleash creative spirit, user data, user engagement, and brand recognition.
  4. To App Business Owner: They get to explore endless benefits ranging from user engagement, user variety, multiple revenue streams (subscription, commission, ads, fees, etc.).

A Case Study of Booking.com hotel booking app

A hotel booking app connects hoteliers and those who want to lend hotel rooms. The Hotel booking portal provides a summary of all hotels in an area, shows all prices and visitor reports, and offers a suitable interface for booking and paying for rooms. In general, a hotel booking app development gives benefits for app owners, hotels, and tourists.

 Hotel Booking App Development Features

Features of Hotel booking mobile app development

  • Engine Recommendation: The app providers customize information based on the users’ previous searches.  If more personal data is collected, the algorithm would be able to produce astounding results.
  • Analytics: Admin has access to the consumer dashboard and the hotel dashboard, which allows for real-time decision-making. For example, a reduced booking price may be provided while bookings are low in a particular city during a particular event.
  • Chatbot assistance: Customers receive a great user experience 24 hours a day, seven days a week, thanks to intelligent travel companions such as Chatbots, Google Assistant and much techno assistance. With their support, users can quickly navigate around common complaints.
  • Estimate Room cost: Users should produce a cost estimate and then schedule accordingly to work with the daily variations in flight and hotel costs. An optimization technique is developed using their data history, taking into account demand rise, airline exclusive deals and offers, and forecasts. Users can book cheaper flights and hotel rooms using disturbing analysis.
  • Virtual Tour: Users can navigate the hotel by searching still photographs, realistic images, and interactive tours with 360-degree photos. They get to see various parts of the hotel in a more compelling way through this approach.

Enhanced Features of Hotel booking app development

  • Plan your trip: The app does more than just book hotels; it also assists users in planning their complete trip and offers a customizable trip planner.
  • Nearby Places: Customers can conveniently discover nearby locations using geolocation tracking features, such as tourist attractions, restaurants, movie theatres, malls, and so on.
  • Restaurant Booking: Users can book restaurants during their trip from the app itself by using the third-party app coalition feature. As a result, users will find it extremely convenient.
  • Hotel Comparison: The hotel booking app facilitates this feature by allowing you to compare hotels inside the app choose the one that best meets your needs.
  • Cab Booking: The app’s owners allow users to book taxis and cabs easily during their travel by using third-party integration with  Ola, Uber, etc.

How to make a successful Hotel booking app development

To develop a Hotel booking portal that is capable of at least locally competing with such a giant of the tourism industry, you need a large team of professionals hotel booking app development company and huge investments. While developing a hotel booking app, you need to keep in mind that the project to be developed has to be supported, developed and advertised for a long time before it turns a profit. It also makes no sense trying to reduce the cost to develop a hotel booking mobile app since it will come at the expense of must-have functionality.

For the reasons, before starting the development of a hotel booking app, you need to have a clear:

  • Idea;
  • Concept;
  • understanding of competitors;
  • list of your competitive advantages;
  • business plan.

We’ve already discussed expanding a business plan and designing a business model canvas. Doing these things will enable you to verify your ideas, draw up a business strategy, and predict your actions in a changing market.

Successfully creating a custom Hotel Booking App

As a practice, the development process consists of the following stages:

App-development-process
  • Idea evaluation and research: Before we begin development, we must be sure that the idea has potential. To do this, we create a business type of canvas, conduct marketing analysis, get feedback, and evaluate the design.
  • UX strategy: At this stage, we think over how to make the answer as functional and user-friendly as possible and also comply with all the necessary conditions.
  • Concept validation: At this stage, we once again authenticate that potential users need the product by giving a prototype to the test group and getting real reviews.
  • Design and development: Now, we start to deem through the best visual implementation of the project and create a demo version that’s gradually turned into a real application.
  • Product growth: When propelling a product on the market, we carefully track the acknowledgement of users to react to changes and adapt the project to real needs.

By designing the proper project architecture in advance, we look forward. We are creating hotel booking platforms to make you able to expand your abilities in the case of necessity without spending lots of money. This makes it possible to develop a mobile reservation application affordably.

Mobile app development banner

It’s worth remembering that the application needs to associate with a massive number of users, as it loses its meaning on a smaller scale. Therefore, most likely, the deals to develop an app will be beneficial for booking startups but will be a waste of money for hotel owners.

Don’t goof out on our latest article: https://krify.co/restaurant-table-app-development-company-in-india/

Integrating with the Third-Party App

  • Book Cab: During their journey, users can hire cabs directly from the app.
  • Navigation: Google Maps and Apple Maps are integrated into the app to ensure that users have no difficulty identifying locations while on the drive.
  • Weather Forecast: Users who have Google Apps integrated can track the weather forecast and schedule their day accordingly.
  • Payment API: Payment APIs from different modes, such as Braintree, Stripe, and PayPal, are combined to ensure safe payments.
  • Secure Servers: The network links on the back end should be safe. Insertion testing can be used to validate server security. Furthermore, an encrypted database, TLS, SSL, or VPN link is recommended.

Technology Stack for the development of a hotel booking app

  • Platforms:  Android, iOS, and Cross Platforms
  • Web / Mobile App Development Languages: JavaScript, Java, Php, Python, Objective-C, Swift, Kotlin, Nodejs, Xamarin
  • Interface: Rest API, Slim Framework
  • Database: Firebase, MySql, MongoDB, Redis, MySQL
  • Web Servers: Apache HTTP Server
  • Payment Gateways: Braintree & PayPal, Stripe, eWallets
  • Cloud Environment: AWS
  • Real-time Analytics: Hadoop, Spark, BigData, Apache Flink, Cisco, IBM
  • Streaming Media System: Helix Universal Server, Wowza Streaming Engine, Nimble Streamer
  • Weather Forecasts: OpenWeatherMap API
  • Maps: Google Maps API
  • Nearby Places: Google Places API
  • Hotel metasearch data: HotelsCombined Data Feeds and Skyscanner Affiliate API
  • Aggregator APIs: Expedia Affiliate Network API

How much does it require to develop a hotel booking app?

This is the favourite question of all startup founder since, as a rule, they begin to raise their ideas with a limited budget. But it isn’t possible to evaluate the development cost precisely right here and now.



hotel-booking-website-business-model


According to the preceding estimates, the cost to develop an online hotel booking app can range depending on the following factors. The price is based on:

  • Project functionality
  • Design
  • The development company and its location
  • The technology used
  • The number of hours that programmers and other professionals work on the project
  • Technical difficulties that may arise
Squeezing opportunities in hotel booking app development

Applications are already supporting many guests to find lodging. Forward-thinking hospitality brands have applied mobile-first strategies to their campaigns to deliver the best user practices while achieving high brand advocacy. You can break into this industry with your resolution, and Krify is here to help! Hotel Booking Mobile Apps require constant innovation as the industry is ever-evolving. Hence, the hotel booking mobile app development company must do market analysis from time to time. Download new mobile apps and go through them for reform and gain knowledge of how to improve your product. Eventually, never give up on a cast to surprise your users by enhancing existing solutions.

Online- and mobile-all are the new rules of the travel & hospitality industry. And tech innovations aplenty are reshaping the market. Very often, just one decision determines whether you’re part of the future or a thing of the past. Let this decision be smart and well-thought-out.

If you want to perceive a cool project, make sure that you entrust your development to a team that knows what they’re talking about. If you have some ideas you want to implement, don’t hesitate to share your insights about a hotel reservation application with us. 

Krify is one of the top mobile and web development company in India and UK having expertized team of developers who can work on most trending technologies to develop the application. Reach us now for free quotation.

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