Hotel Booking App Development: Features, Costs & Guide

Nowadays, people use Android or iPhone for almost everything, from chatting with friends to ordering food. Moreover, when it comes to booking hotels, things are no different. They want all their work to be easy and quick so they can manage everything without hassle. Therefore, this article will explicitly discuss hotel booking app development and how to create it effectively. Also, we will highlight the top 5 hotel app development types.

What is Hotel Booking App Development?

Hotel booking app development is the creation of a mobile application specifically designed to streamline the hotel reservation process for users on their smartphones. It provides a convenient way for travelers to find hotels, browse room options, and make secure bookings, all directly through their mobile apps.

This app development makes it significantly easier for users who don’t have much free time to plan their travels and bookings. Also, they can potentially find better deals and discounts compared to the traditional methods. Businesses can also benefit from these hotel booking apps by offering users special promotions and loyalty programs.

However, one of the significant concerns of developers is creating a user-friendly interface for these apps that offers smooth navigation. They have to design a powerful search and filter option allowing users to search for hotels based on location and other preferences. Plus, it’s essential to integrate a secure payment processing through which users can securely book hotels using their desired payment methods.

Why Create a Hotel Booking App?

As we discussed above, there’s a pressing need to create hotel booking apps considering the advancement of technology and people’s busy routines. It offers benefits for both travelers and businesses in various ways. Let’s mention a few aspects of further exploring the importance of these apps’ development:

Enhanced Customer Experience: A well-designed hotel booking app can significantly enhance customer experience. So, you can delight your guests by providing a user-friendly app interface and smooth navigation process.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Automating the booking process through a mobile app can streamline operations and reduce the workload on your staff. With fewer manual tasks in managing reservations, your team can focus on delivering exceptional service to guests.
Targeted Marketing Opportunities: Through hotel mobile app development, you can get valuable insights into customer preferences and behavior. In this way, you can create targeted marketing campaigns and loyalty programs, driving customer engagement.
Full-Time Accessibility: With a hotel booking app, travelers can make reservations anytime and anywhere. Thus, you can attract a broader range of guests and increase booking opportunities.

Top 5 Types of Hotels Booking App Development

There’s not a single type of hotel application that covers all the aspects and manages all kinds of customers. In fact, several types of apps are available that specialize in their niche. Thus, we will now mention the top 5 types of hotel mobile app development that you can choose from based on your specific requirements.

1. Branded Hotel Chains

They develop their applications to facilitate direct bookings and enhance customer loyalty. Notably, these apps offer exclusive deals and rewards programs for frequent guests, so they never think about going to another brand. Examples of branded hotel chains include Marriot Bonvoy and Hilton Honours.

2. Vacation Rental Platforms

These kinds of apps primarily focus on listing private accommodations, like villas or vacation homes, for short-term rentals. So, users can search for properties and book their stays on these accommodations directly through the app. Examples of these apps may include Airbnb and Vrbo.

3. Last-Minute Booking Apps

Not everyone gets the opportunity to plan their trip; some may need to travel emergently. In that scenario, these apps are handy because they let you book your desired hotel until the very last minute and even offer you significant discounts. You can take HotelTonight and Hotwire as examples of this type.

4. Pet-Friendly Booking Apps

If you have a pet and you don’t want to leave it at home while traveling to another location, this type of hotel booking app is for you. They let you plan your holidays with your pets by providing you with certain needed arrangements. For example, BringFido is a booking app specially designed for this purpose.

5. Corporate Travel Apps

For business travelers, these booking apps are the best choice as they offer features tailored to their needs and preferences. The main concern of these apps is to streamline the booking process and provide business-friendly accommodations. Navan and Concur are some of the prominent examples here.

6 Must-Have Features of Hotel Booking App

Before heading to the hotel booking app development, learning a few tips is essential for optimum results. Therefore, this section will provide some of the necessary features for these kinds of apps.

User-Friendly Interface: A confusing app can lead to frustration and abandoned bookings, especially for customers in an emergency. In contrast, a simple and well-designed interface brings higher chances of a successful reservation and a happy guest. When users find what they need without time wastage, they’re more likely to be satisfied with the app services.
Search and Filter Options: There should be a powerful search feature along with the filter options in the app, enabling the users to get personalized results. For instance, they should be able to search by location or the desired room features. This level of control and precision saves valuable time and frustration for customers.
Secure Payment Channels: A successful app development implements secure payment gateways to facilitate safe transactions for booking hotel rooms. In this regard, multiple payment methods should exist, including credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, and other online payment options.
Feedback and Reviews: Another crucial feature of a hotel app is the availability of reviews and ratings. Through this, future users get the benefit of making informed booking decisions. Besides, hotel brands also learn about customers’ choices and preferences.
Multi-lingual Support: The app should be optimized for international users with the availability of multiple language options. In this way, it helps users to experience app navigation in their native language for a satisfying and reliable experience.
Push Notifications: The main objective of this feature is to inform and alert users about various updates even when they are not using the app. So, they get notifications about booking confirmations, upcoming stays, and exclusive offers through their mobile phones.

Step-by-Step Guide to Hotel App Development

When you are going to develop and achieve something, it doesn’t happen overnight. You must have thorough planning and milestones set for it to succeed properly. Therefore, we will present you with the whole step-by-step milestone if you want to learn how to create a hotel booking app with ultimate success.

1. Market Analysis

The first approach to start a project should be market research and analysis, where you gather all possible information relevant to your project. In this scenario, perform in-depth research on currently working hotel booking apps and note down all the good and bad points about them. The more you understand these aspects, the more customer satisfaction you can expect from your app.

2. Planning and Strategy

Once you are done with thorough market research, it’s time to plan your development project and have an effective strategy. This step is critical as you set your work’s whole purpose and objective. Also, you get to define your target audience and how you can approach and engage them. Besides, you must plan what kind of hotel app you want to create and what features it should include.

3. Outstanding UX/UI Design

The primary concern that you must have for app development is to make the design elegant yet simple. It’s necessary to achieve the perfect balance between these two elements because successful development requires both.

By making the app simple and user-friendly, you ensure that all the features are easily accessible to everyone. At the same time, the stunning look gives users an engaging experience, and they are more satisfied with app usage.

4. Hire the Right App Development Company

After choosing the optimum design for your app, try to hire the best hotel booking app development company available. Here, you must take into account their level of professionalism and outstanding skills by exploring their work portfolios. Also, negotiate with them to set a reasonable price for their services in your project.

5. Technology Stack Selection

The technology stack determines what kind of programming languages, frameworks, and tools you will use for your hotel app. So, try to choose the appropriate stack with the best front-end and back-end development. In addition, consider some other factors like platform compatibility, security, and budget constraints.

6. App Development Process

It’s one of the most sensitive steps because this is where the development process starts. In this step, the developers you hire use their coding skills to create the best application from scratch based on your demand.

The aim to achieve here is to develop a high-performance app without errors. However, to save time and money, you can use ZEGOCLOUD SDKs and APIs to get a head start on your project.

7. Testing and Deployment

This is the final step of your hotel booking app development, where you need to be assured of its quality and deploy it on various platforms. Several tests are performed in this regard to confirm that it doesn’t contain any errors or bugs.

Also, rigorous testing must be implemented to ensure the quality of performance and app security. Once everything clears, simply deploy it in the market and keep maintaining the app for a smoother experience.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop an Online Hotel Booking App?

The actual cost that a top-notch hotel app development project requires depends on several factors, depending on your choices. So, we can’t tell you the exact cost figure you will require for this purpose, but we can provide you with an estimated value. Research shows that app development for hotels can cost you between USD 20,000 and USD 200,000, depending on your project scope and the type of application you want to create.

So, it’s on you to plan and decide properly about your budget and the quality of the app you want to serve to users. As a bonus tip, we recommend you use ZEGOCLOUD, which can reduce your hotel booking app development cost, skipping the need to build an app from scratch. With this, you can boost the app development process and attain high-quality results in less time and cost.

Hotel Booking App Monetization Strategies

If you have followed all the steps and tips that we shared with you above, your hotel app development procedure is complete and ready to use. Now, it’s time to discuss how you can monetize it and make it an earning source.

For this purpose, several options are available for you, like having commissions for hotel reservations, running certain ads, selling travel packages, and more. Take a look below for detailed monetization strategies:

Commission on Bookings: This is one of the most popular monetization strategies, and you can earn a commission every time a user successfully reserves a hotel through your app. Usually, the commission rate is negotiated with each hotel beforehand and falls between 10% – 30%.
Featured Listings & Ads: Here, you can get paid by hotels through premium plan offerings, allowing them to have their listings displayed prominently in search results. Also, you can offer in-app advertising space for other related businesses, generating further revenue.
Subscription Model: Another strategy is to design a premium subscription model for customers and offer them discounted booking fees and travel insurance options. By doing this, you can attract a lot of audiences who value these perks.
Affiliate Marketing: In this strategy, you can develop a partnership with travel companies or some others and earn a commission for referring users to their platform. It can be a great and effective way to earn money without managing bookings directly.

How Can ZEGOCLOUD Help for Hotel Booking Mobile App Development?

In the above sections, we have explained all the benefits of developing hotel mobile apps, along with how you can create them from scratch. However, it’s not always wise to create something from scratch and waste a lot of time. In this regard, you can get help from ZEGOCLOUD, which offers 20+ pre-built UIKits that you can use to create a hotel booking app in a minimum amount of time.

ZEGOCLOUD facilitates users with satisfactory customer support service in the hotel app by enabling direct voice and video call functionality. Plus, it allows instant information exchange for customers, where they can get informed of booking details and hotel policies. You can develop real-time communication in the app using its SDKs for better coordination and staff training.

Moreover, it offers the facility to arrange virtual tours through video calls, by which you can showcase hotel facilities and elegant views. Also, you can drive promotional events and collect customer feedback through live streaming using ZEGOCLOUD integration. All in all, you can have a stable and secure app performance with it, even during times of higher traffic.

Conclusion

To conclude, hotel apps have made it so convenient and effective for everyone looking to book their rooms without getting out of their beds. Considering the increasing demand for hotel booking app development, this guide has provided all the relevant information you require.

We have even discussed the step-by-step instructions that lead to successful app development. Additionally, you have been introduced to ZEGOCLOUD, which can help you in this regard with many valuable features.

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