The successful stories of giants like Airbnb and Booking.com have pushed the e-Travel industry forward, showcasing exceptional growth. So, no wonder why many startups and entrepreneurs apart from the professional tourism industry are looking to pounce on the opportunity to have their own hotel booking app to provide different services.

 

This blog is an attempt to address your concerns regarding hotel app booking development. From Key features to types of hotel and development costs, we are covering each aspect with subtle information.

 

But before we start, here are some interesting stats from Statista:

 

Travel and tourism will hit the $833.5 billion mark in 2025

 

By the end of 2023, the number of users in the online travel booking market will fall touch the $823.6 million mark. In fact, 72% of worldwide sales in tourism will occur online.

 

The stats show us how big the revenue is in Tourism and so, creating a hotel booking app is definitely going to boost your chances in the market.

 

But, what are the crucial aspects to consider before you start with Hotel booking app development?

 

Factors to consider before starting Hotel Booking Development

1.  Select the Type of Hotel Booking App

It is important to know the type of hotel booking application you are looking to build. In addition, you must have a clear idea of the services you seek to provide through your booking application.

 

Here are different types of Hotel Booking Apps:

 

✦ Hotel Consolidators App

 

These types of apps easily aggregate hotel information and provide it to users. In simple words, they make data accessible to customers. Booking.com and Trip.com are some prominent examples.

 

✦ Hotel Chain Apps

 

This type of booking app is generally useful when you wish to allow the booking of a room inside a specific hotel or chain of hotels.  Hilton Honors and Marriott Rewards fall in this type of hotel booking app.

 

✦ Advance Hotel booking

 

Many individuals look to book hotels as early as possible. So, having advance booking feature app will help you provide advance booking facility to your customers. In fact, you can provide some decent offers to promote advance booking.

 

✦ Last Minute Hotel Booking App

 

In general, this type of app is suitable for customers who are aiming for last-minute reservations. Unlike advance booking, here a customer is just looking to secure a spot at the last time.

 

✦ Hybrid Hotel Booking App

 

Hybrid is basically the combination of Advanced and Last-Minute booking. To clarify, users can easily book in advance or at Last-Minute. So, creating a hybrid Hotel Booking App will cover a wider range of people from a business perspective.

2. Decide your Distribution Area (Start with your local Market)

Nowadays, the majority of apps run worldwide rather than on the local market. But, it usually takes more time to reach that level than anticipated. This means you need to start small i.e. with local distribution of your services, and then capitalize in near future.

3. Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

When you strive to lure customers your way it is important to have a few sets of offers and schemes or rather say Unique Value proposition up your sleeve.

 

Here are some offers and schemes you can use for UVP:

 

  • Short Stay
  • Free Stay
  • Cheap booking option
  • Apartment rental or Room Sharing

4. Data Collection

Data is without a doubt one of the most vital prospects of hotel booking. You have to provide data on hotel listings to your users. Hence, you have to use different APIs that provide access to data such as hotel listing, ratings, price range and etc.

Also Read, How to make an app like Uber?

Hotel Booking App Development Process

The Hotel Booking App development process will include different steps and phases. However, it is important to build an MVP of your Hotel booking application.

 

Here is a checklist of steps necessary for developing an MVP of the Hotel Booking App:

 

Step 1: Analysis of Market

 

Step 2: Pick a type of your app

 

Step 3: Generate Competitors List  

 

Step 4: Figure out your Distribution Area

 

Step 5: Decide on Unique Value Proposition

 

Step 6: List out key features for MVP

 

Step 7: Consider adding extra features

 

Step 8: Hire an experienced app development company like Webbybutter for Smooth Project development

 

Step 9: Prepare your strategy according to business objectives and vision

 

Step 10: Make sure your vision is comprehended by the development team

 

Step 11: Form up a marketing strategy

 

Step 12: Launch the MVP App for customer feedback

 

Once you have your MVP ready, you can now use the feedback of users and improve the features of your Booking App. Below are some of the common features to have in your hotel booking app.

 

Must have features in Hotel Booking App

1. Signup

 

Nowadays, signup is one of the basic features of mobile apps. This feature authorizes users and allows navigation of app features.

 

In addition, the feature makes it easy for you to connect with a user on a personal level. In simple words, you can target individual users with specific offers or schemes pertaining to the business. Also, you have to make sure that a new user can explore the core features/functionalities of your booking app as a guest user.

 

2. Searching

 

Your search feature must have a quick response. In fact, users should have easy access to information about hotels and their facilities. If your searching feature is slow users will not use the application. As core features circle around the searching feature, you have to provide different parameters/filters for easy navigation. For instance, Destination, now here you can provide filters like city, hotel name, and address.

 

3. Filters

 

Filters are useful in addressing specific user requirements. Using filters users can select from the various price ranges. In addition, they can use filters to use a specific location or choose a hotel based on reviews.

 

4. Booking Screen

 

The ultimate purpose of any Hotel booking app is to facilitate an easy way of finding a place to stay for. However, make sure you only include key details and the fields corresponding to them for an easy process. We emphasize this because a booking screen with excessive details tends to lead to a bad User experience.

 

5. Accommodation details

 

Once a user enters booking details, it’s obvious that he/she would want to take a closer look on to the chosen accommodation. Hence, a screen exhibiting accommodation details is a must.

The Screen must show the following details- map, photo gallery, basic information (address, review, etc), hotel policies & facilities, call-to-action button, share button, add to favorite button, and other data that you feel justifies your services.

 

6. Payment

 

After the user books a hotel place, the app must facilitate payment and also generate an invoice or receipt reflecting the customer data. To make sure a smooth payment process for your Hotel Booking app, you can consider two options i.e. check out and payment gateway.

 

Check out Helps verification of user data and confirmation of their personal data. The check-out screen must also provide a final alert notifying the user about accommodation details.

 

Payment gateway- With the surge in UPI and online payment portals, it is essential that you integrate a payment gateway for your Hotel Booking App.

 

7. Cancellation

 

Often users have to cancel their booking, irrespective of the reason your app should provide a cancellation feature. This provides a sense of security to a user while booking.

 

In addition, you can also provide an additional feature like Last Minute Cancellation, however, this use-case is difficult to implement from a business point of view.

 

Now that we have the ingredients, let’s explore the process of booking app development.

 

Hotel Booking App Development Process

You have your MVP, Must have features covered but that was the easy part. The hard part is to break it down for app development. So, here are the steps you need to follow for Hotel Booking App Development.

 

Step 1: Requirement Assessment

 

You have to organize the details of your project, especially the requirements. Gather specific requirements and conduct a thorough assessment to outline a development plan with clear requirements specifications.

 

Step 2: UI/UX Design

 

The development plan drafted in step1 is used here by designers. Based on the specifications and requirements, the UI/UX designer develops a prototype for each screen.

 

Step 3: App Development process

 

Once the prototype is built, the app development team provides the functionality. Further in this step, development is followed by testing and deployment. You can read more about the mobile app development process here.

 

Step 4: Release the End-product

 

When the testing team clears the bugs and issues it is ready for release. This is the deployment of your Hotel Booking App. Further, after the release of your end product, you can gather user data and use it for improving your features.

 

Step 5: Quality Assurance and Maintenance

 

Quality Assurance (QA) and maintenance is a never-ending process. You have to constantly provide upgrades for your Hotel booking app. This will lure more users and also improve your application.

 

Closing up!

We hope you liked the explanation about the Hotel booking app development process. Still, if you feel like exploring more or already have the roadmap for building your next app, Webbybutter will be more than happy to assist you.

 

FAQ’s

✦ What does it cost to build a Hotel Booking App?

 

In general, the cost depends on the complexity of the app, the development model, third-party integrations, and the features that are included at the UI/UX level. However, an approximate price will range from $20k to $40k.

 

✦ How to monetize the Hotel Booking App?

 

You can monetize your Hotel Booking App using strategies such as Advertising, Subscription, Service Fees, etc.

 

✦ What are some extra features to include in a Hotel Booking App?

 

Here are some additional features that you can consider while making a Hotel Booking App- Places Nearby, Car/Taxi Booking, Trip Planner, or Restaurant Booking.

 

✦ What are some advantages of the online Hotel Booking App?

 

From a Hoteliers’ perspective, a Hotel Booking App allows them to reach a wider audience, assist with booking & payment processes without errors and promote their hotel brands.

 

On the other hand from the user’s perspective, varieties of hotels are accessible at their fingertips, meaning, they can easily check out different details before booking any hotel.

Published On: August 16th, 2022 / Categories: App Development, Software, UI/UX / Tags: , , /

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