The travel and tourism industry has been radically transformed by the influx of travel mobile apps. Today’s travelers are tech-savvy and smart travelers who have embraced the advancements in technology to their own advantage.
According to a report, almost two-thirds of travelers rely on travel mobile apps during their trip. Moreover, 48% of travelers from the US use smartphones to research, plan, and book their travel. Therefore, it is essential to create a travel mobile app that caters to all the needs of travelers. You can also check with Nandbox, they are best in native mobile apps.
But before we get into the details of how to create a profitable travel mobile app, let’s look at why you should create a travel mobile app.
Why create a travel mobile app?
Are you still contemplating why you should build a travel mobile app for your business? It is worth looking at a few statistics from some of the leading travel websites and apps in the US.
- The most popular travel website in the world, Booking.com receives over 443 million visitors every month.
- Tripadvisor receives over 325 million users every month.
- Travelers in the US use about 7-8 mobile apps on average. The apps are used for searching and booking their trip. Also, they use apps while on their trip with maps, weather apps, or airline companies being the most used apps.
- Almost 61% of US travelers booked their travel in the past year through smartphones. And, 64% use their smartphones while on their trip.
- Travel mobile apps are expected to generate a revenue of $188.9 billion by 2020.
These statistics indicate that the travel booking trend has shifted from travel agents to mobile apps and travel websites. Therefore, to leverage the lucrative travel market, it is advisable to create a profitable travel mobile app.
What are the different types of travel apps?
If you want to create a profitable travel mobile app, you have to decide which niche you want to enter. Due to stiff competition in the market, it’s best to go for a unique niche that may not have a lot of companies and have a strong value proposition. That being said, there are various types of travel app types out which the most popular ones are mentioned below:
Flight Booking Apps
Flight booking mobile apps are used by travelers to compare fares, book and make payments for flight tickets. Price prediction algorithms in apps help users to book their tickets at the cheapest fares. Flight booking apps with API/GDS integration display real-time inventory on flights for users to book their tickets.
Hotel Booking Apps
Accommodation and hotel booking apps are used by travelers to search, book and pay for hotel rooms. These apps also allow users to view reviews, ratings, images of hotels and other accommodations to get a better idea of the properties. Advanced features in some apps such as check-in features, provide extra convenience to travelers when they are traveling.
Transport Apps
Transport applications provide travelers access to the information on transportation and routes at their travel destination. These applications have geo-location that uses the traveler’s location to suggest nearby transport options. Your transportation app can also integrate the ridesharing services to provide the extra level of convenience to users.
Travel Guide Apps
Travel guide apps enable travelers to view events, local attractions, sights and insider tips at their travel destination. The travelers can also share reviews and their experience in various places within the app for others to view.
How to develop a profitable travel mobile app?
Creating a profitable travel mobile app for that strong business idea and a unique niche that you want to enter into, is a complete process that goes through several steps. The development process in itself requires various experts to use their skills in each process of designing and developing a mobile app.
Select Niche and Target Audience
The first and foremost step towards creating a profitable travel mobile app is deciding your target audience and niche. As a new travel business, you should try to find a unique niche that caters to unique requirements of travelers. The kind of niche you cater to will decide what type of travel app you need to develop.
Select The Best Travel Portal Development Company
The main step in developing a travel mobile app requires you to select a reputed travel portal development company . The company should work closely with your business and take care of the complete development process. While choosing from a number of software development companies. Factors that you should consider are the completed projects, the client portfolio, and testimonials, year of experience of the company, and the location of the company.
These factors influence the cost of the travel portal development. They also decide the quality and delivery time of your travel mobile app.
API/GDS integration services
API/GDS integration services are essential for your travel mobile app to have a wider reach and access to a large inventory of products and services such as hotel rooms, flight tickets, rental cars, etc. This would save time for your business in contacting different companies for the inventory.
Moreover, API/GDS enables customers to easily access real-time information on fares and availability of hotel rooms or flight tickets.
What are the key features of a travel app?
Every travel mobile app must have basic features such as sign-up, listings, in-app messaging and calling, booking, reviews and ratings, push notifications, and the searching system. But if you want to build a profitable travel mobile app, you should add more advanced features to ease the booking process as well as provide a seamless travel experience to users.
These advanced features can be currency converters, language translation, in-app payments, weather forecasting, nearby places, 24*7 customer support, etc. Advanced features boost the confidence of travelers in your travel mobile app thereby increasing your customer base and double your revenue.
How much does it cost to develop a travel app?
The cost to build a travel mobile app mainly depends on the features and functionality of the app. The apps with basic functionality take less time to be developed and cost lesser as compared to the travel apps with medium to highly complex functionalities.
The other factor that the cost depends upon is the location of the developers. For instance, developers in the US or Europe charge the highest per-hour rates, followed by developers in Africa, while developers in Asia charge the cheapest rates to develop travel mobile apps.
How to monetize the travel mobile app?
Travel mobile apps are mostly free to download from Google Play or App Store. However, these apps earn revenue mainly through three models which are the advertising mode, the agency model, and the merchant model.
- The in-app advertising model charges the advertisers such as hoteliers or flights to display their adds on the app and get customers to click on their ads and make bookings with their company.
- The travel mobile app owner also charges commissions on each booking or payment made in the app.
- Various travel apps also provide basic features for free and charge a fee from customers for accessing the premium features and advanced functionality.
- The travel mobile apps earn revenue through in-app purchases as well wherein they charge users for additional travel services within the app.
Now that you have gained some insights on how to create a profitable travel mobile app, the next step is to get in touch with a travel portal development company to execute your plan. Enuke Software is a reputed travel portal development company that has extensive experience in developing world-class travel mobile apps for the profits of your business to skyrocket.
