How To Build Successful Hotel Booking App Development:- A Step-By-Step Guide

While travelling to a destination, one of the most daunting tasks is finding a hotel. It can be an extremely time-consuming process that leads to unnecessary stress. Hotel booking apps have been specially developed in recent years to make this process easier and more efficient. These apps are available on both mobile and desktop platforms. They provide users with the ability to easily search for hotels, see their rates, view room availability and amenities, check out easy-to-understand user reviews, etc. Do you wonder how to create an app that offers the option of booking a hotel? Let us look into the same.

How to Develop a Hotel Booking App? 

Before you start a hotel booking app development project, you should understand the various aspects of it to decide whether or not your organization is willing to take this challenge on.

Typically, there are six steps involved in developing a hotel booking app:

Step 1: Conduct a competitor analysis 

One of the most important things you need to do when you start developing a hotel booking app is to understand how other players in the market operate and what features they offer in their apps. The more data you have access to, the better decisions regarding features and your product roadmap can be made.

You can find this information, for example, in the form of blog posts, public statements made by company representatives, or articles from technology journalists. After you have read up on this information, it’s time to move ahead.

Step 2: Evaluate your competitors’

A very important task when developing a hotel booking app is to assess your competitors and what features and functions they offer. Understanding your direct competition will allow you to formulate a strategy for increasing customer retention in the future. The list of features that are required should be discussed and included in the app development plan. 

Step 3: Gather requirements and design wireframes 

Now that you have an idea of the features your hotel booking app is going to need, it’s time to start gathering them to create the initial design and architecture of your app. You will need to work with a development team that understands what you are trying to accomplish. You must stay involved throughout the entire process. To do this, it is important to communicate with your developer and ensure all requirements are met. Keeping a daily check on your progress and communicating updates with clients will ensure that deadlines are met and there aren’t any undesirable bugs in the app development process. 

Step 4: Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) 

Before you develop a hotel booking app, make sure that the idea you have is well-defined and has a clear monetization strategy. If you are planning to charge for your app, make sure to consider a recurring revenue strategy.

An MVP is a core feature of an app that allows it to have value from the first day it’s released to the market. This will attract customers and give them a sense of what your app does, which will help with increasing conversion rates and converting new users into regular clients for your booking platform.

Step 5: Launch and evaluate the results

After launching your hotel booking app, monitor and analyze how users interact with your app regularly. This will help you identify areas of improvement, which can be applied to your app using A/B testing. Make sure to set up a conversion funnel and test different user acquisition strategies based on traffic sources. 

Step 6: Update and add new features

As soon as you are satisfied with the performance of your app, it’s time to work on additional features that can give you an edge over your competitors. Including travel guides and reviews is an excellent way to increase traffic to your app. Additionally, this move will allow you to increase user engagement and conversion rates by involving customers in making decisions related to booking hotels.

These are the first six steps involved in building a hotel booking app. Now, let us dive into the top-notch advantages of developing a hotel booking app.

The Benefits of Developing a Hotel Booking App

Developing a hotel booking app can have several benefits for both the customer and the hotel. For example, some hotels offer early check-in and late check-out times if you book through their booking app, so your day is more flexible.

A hotel booking app can also quickly provide relevant information on each room type, as well as any special offers or amenities they may have available at the time you are looking to stay. Some apps even allow customers to cancel their reservations without having to call or talk to anyone, just by clicking one button on the screen. This simplicity is perfect for those who are constantly juggling schedules. Apps can also be a great resource for you to communicate with the hotel about last-minute changes. If you need to shorten your stay or add another person, it is much more convenient than having to call or email the hotel requesting these changes. 

A List of Benefits That Come with Developing a Hotel Booking App

1. More people book rooms through apps because customers are more comfortable booking hotels and interacting with the hotel from a mobile app rather than by phone. The apps with the most popular rating can provide more enthusiasm for the guests of your hotel.
2. The speed at which you can book a room is much quicker. If you are in a hurry and need to get somewhere on time, this is an excellent benefit of developing a hotel booking app. You will save time by not having to call or go to the website.
3. The ability to make payments with the app is a huge benefit of developing a hotel booking app. You don’t have to worry about paying with cash at checkout or writing checks before you check out; it’s all handled in the app.
4. Hotel apps are a way for hotels to build their brand and create loyalty among their customers. If you can provide more information to your customers, such as amenities, directions, and more, you can retain these customers for future visits. The hotel that the customer has the best overall experience with will be the one they will want to book through again and again.

 Advantages for Hoteliers:

• Hotel management knows the prices of all your inventory beforehand, thus always knowing profitability before additional expenses.
• One reaches more potential customers, who can now easily book your properties and avoid frustrating in-person encounters.
• Hotels can now keep a consistent brand awareness by reaching out to new guests even if they aren’t looking for a hotel at that time. And with their loyalty points, you earn more rewards with every booking!

Advantages for Consumers:

• People can search for hotels based on the budget range so that there are suitable options immediately on top of the screen. It allows them to find a comfortable place without spending hours scrolling through listings like in the old days.
• The prices for hotels offered by leading applications can be found in advance so that you can book a hotel and find out whether it fits your budget or not. 
• Hotel owners can now show their inventory at more popular locations without incurring additional costs due to parking fees and other various miscellaneous expenses!
• Hoteliers are now able to reach potential new guests who may not use other booking apps or websites.
• You gain more loyalty as staying at an app allows customers to accumulate points (in addition to cash) with every booking.

These are a few benefits that one can reap by developing a hotel booking app. There are several types of hotel booking apps, let’s look into the same.

Types of Hotel Booking Apps

The hospitality industry is changing at an accelerated rate with more and more consumers opting for online bookings. With an ordinary hotel booking app, you can often find deals on hotels and other accommodations for less than the price of a flight. The plus side to these apps is that you can compare prices between hotels, but if you are looking for luxury accommodation this isn’t always the best option. These apps still only show hotels within a certain range from where you live, which means if your destination is way out of town then that could be a problem.

Some of the basic categories of hotel booking apps are: 

The Hotel Consolidator App – This kind of app is ideal for hotels that cater to business markets or large groups. It also allows them to get more out of their marketing efforts by providing a constant flow of visitors on the website, which ties in with the modern concept known as nurturing leads on your website or social media page.

The Mobile Hotel Reservation App – This kind of mobile app allows you to look for nearby hotels no matter where you are. It is especially useful if you are travelling in a city and want to find something close by. You can look up the name of your favourite property, see it on a map, and then you can even book it right on your mobile device. The app doesn’t have to be related to travel at all. This kind of app is often used by homeowners who want to manage their home in addition to all of the usual services they offer customers, like laundry, cleaning, and so forth.

App for Hotel Retail – This kind of app is most useful for travellers who are looking for special deals or discounts on hotels. Some of the features that you might expect to see in a retail hotel app include special offers and discounts; live chat with a customer service agent, and direct phone numbers for specific questions. The main difference between this kind of app and the previous one is that the final product is often displayed on your mobile device instead of on the hotel’s website.

The Most Important Functions of a Hotel Booking App

The features are the foundation of a hotel app development process. Features are what set your app apart from the competition. It is difficult to know how to define features when you are engaged in a hotel booking app development process. Some general features considered would include:

• A search option: Some people enjoy searching for hotels; your app should make this possible. You may want the hotel name searched in a language you understand.
• Hotel images: Well, hotels have photos, so it is natural for people to want to see those photos in their hotel booking app.
• Hotel maps: Hotel booking apps provide maps of the area where the hotel is located, as well as its location on a world map. For example, if a user is looking for a place with a shop just outside of their room, he/she can view that map and look for that store. This feature allows users to get information about different places near their specific location and make quick decisions about which one to choose.
• Customer service/Chatbots: Your customers want to be able to contact you. If your app doesn’t have a customer service option, people will be forced to make the call from another app. “That personal touch” is what people want when they need help in an emergency.
• Payment options: The feature of payment is always crucial. People should be able to make the payment for the booking on the app itself, and the process has to be smooth to give the user one of the best experiences while making payments online for hotel bookings.
• Car/taxi reservation service- With the help of this feature in your app, users do not need to use a different taxi booking app. The traveller can request a taxi using the hotel booking apps by specifying the pick-up and drop-off locations. If a driver is available at the close-by pick-up location, the request will be approved, and the user will get a confirmation for the same.
• Policy on Cancellations: The cancellation policy for reservations protects customers. In the event of an emergency, they will be entitled to cancel their reservations. If you don’t have a cancellation policy, users may dislike your hotel booking app since they may perceive it as being constrictive. Your cancellation policy should be accommodating. A return policy ought to be mentioned as well, in case any reservations are cancelled.

Estimated Expenses for Establishing a Hotel Booking App 

The cost of creating a hotel app relies on several factors, such as: 

• The features and functions of the hotel booking app will be offered.
• The size of the hotel or hotel chain.
• The market in which the app will be used.
• The type of mobile technology it will use to display content, and
• Whether the application is web-based or natively installed.

It is rather challenging to give an exact price for developing an app. However, a rough estimate for the cost is that it will be in the $20k to $40k area. But pricing also depends on how many business hours are needed to develop the app.

Conclusion

Due to the widespread use of mobile devices, hospitality businesses have surprising opportunities to interact with and serve customers at every point of their journey. You can grow your company and attract new clients by utilizing hotel booking applications, and a mobile app development company can help you in the best possible ways. It would rather not waste users’ time making reservations traditionally.

If you have been surfing the web and looking for the best mobile app development services, then HashStudioz will be able to help you with the most suitable services in the same niche. We work with international brands to design and deliver top-notch mobile apps that enable seamless user experiences on all contemporary platforms and devices.

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this piece and gained additional insight into the process of developing a booking app.