Who doesn’t like to Travel? Imagining Traveling the World:
Isn’t it awesome to have an app that can guide you about travel whenever you want a vacation, why don’t you just create your own travelling app it can be a great business idea too?
There are hundreds of kinds of travel mobile apps out there, most of which are actively helping us in our travels, whether we know it or not.
Here are some examples of the basic mobile apps for the tourism industry that we use for travelling.
Best Travel Apps:
- For planning a trip – Tripadvisor, TripCase, TripIt, and more
- For making hotel/flight/train bookings – MakeMyTrip, OYO rooms, Goibibo, Clear Tip, etc.
- For location tracking – Google Maps, Tinder, Waze, and more
- When visiting a different language-speaking region – Google Translate
For booking cabs/bikes – OLA, Uber, etc.
Then there are some apps that cover all these services into a single app. Basically, your mobile phone has everything that you’ll ever need on your trip, no matter which country you are visiting.
Travel apps help you get better control over your journey and make it as comfortable as possible.
If you are looking to create your own travel mobile app, for personal or monetary purposes, here you will find everything you need to get started and develop a wonderful mobile travel application.
Running out of app ideas? Check out 101 mobile app ideas that haven’t made yet
How to Make a Successful Travel App:
The development of a mobile travel application depends on a number of things, including the type of app, functionalities, purpose, integrations, design requirements, etc.
You can either consider hiring a professional travel app development company for the job or develop the app yourself.
However, you will need to learn the basics of app development for the latter option. If you are wondering how to make a successful travel app, here are the basic steps involved in the development of a travel mobile app.
1. Theme design: The best idea is to choose from the existing mobile app themes online from websites like Themeforest.
The travel agency app design should be compatible and right fit with the kind of app you want.
If you are designing app for IOS, Check out designing tips for iPhone 10
2. Building the Homepage: The Home screen is the first thing users will see in your mobile app. It should tell everything your app is about and the features it offers.
3. Build a Menu: The menu will contain all the options you want to show to your app users. Some options include Home, My account, Offers, Book a ride/hotel/ticket, Things to do, Maps, etc.
4. Adding Content: Content is by far the most important thing on your travel app. You can create different categories of content, a blog, an image gallery, pages, privacy terms, contact details, and more.
5. App launch screen and compatibility: Whether you are making an Android app or an iOS one, you should consider compatibility thing to make sure that your travel app fits all mobile screen sizes. Also, focus on building a relevant launch screen for the app.
There are many free (and some paid) online tools and tutorials that can teach you how to make a travel guide app or any other travel mobile app without learning a single line of code.
If you are still confused, do find a good travel mobile app development company or developer to outsource the job.
Adding the Travel App Features:
Features are what make your travel app better (or worse) than your competitors in the same industry.
There are already hundreds of mobile tourism apps out there and unless you are making a totally unique application, you need to include some or all of the following tourist app features in your app.
- Travel planning features, such as the destination-search feature, trip schedules, travel tips and guides, e-tickets and other document storing, etc.
- Travel journal feature with the integration of the camera app to allow users to capture their precious travel moments in live notes.
- Navigation and Maps are something every travel mobile app should have, irrespective of the basic purpose of that particular application.
- In-app booking feature to allow users to make bookings for hotels, flights, trains, cabs, etc., on the go through a single app. You can also include deals and offers to give your app an advantage over others.
- Reviews & recommendations are what users look for when checking the reliability of a hotel, transport, or another travel-related service. Provide an option for the same in your app.
- Local area information and city transport guides in your app can help tourists get around the city easily.
- Many travel apps are now coming with integrated translation facilities to make it easier for tourists to overcome the language barrier when visiting a foreign language-speaking country.
- The weather forecast is another feature that you can consider including in your mobile travel app since every traveller wants to know the weather condition of the place he/she is planning to visit.
- Local helplines and emergency numbers of various cities/towns/countries can go into your app’s guidance or blog section.
Some other features a travel application can have are – a dedicated user account, filters, search facility, currency converter, social integration, world clock, itinerary generator, washroom finder, Wi-Fi finder, dating & networking, events listing, and booking, etc.
Your app may or may not contain all these features, depending on its core purpose.
However, you should at least include basic things like maps and a blog when building a mobile app for a travel agency.
Things to consider:
Here are some other things you might want to consider before getting your app developed by a travel app development company.
Why do you need an app when you already have a mobile website?
Dedicated travel apps are reported to bring about 130% more traffic and conversion than mobile websites.
What do your users need?
Another important thing to consider is – who is your target audience and what do they want from your future travel app?
Try including all these things and some more.
Research your competitors to find out what they are doing and what features they lack that you can include in your own travel app. Also, be sure to use the free data provided by other travel apps.
Choosing the right travel mobile app development team is another significant step in developing a perfect travel app for your mobile customers.
How to Make Money from Your Travel App:
Even if you are not selling any particular money-oriented service, such as transport, tour guidance, or accommodation, through your travel app, you can still make money from your app by following the options mentioned below.
- Advertising through Google Adsense and other relevant ad placement options including click-based advertising.
- Feature other travel services and products on your site for a commission.
- Allow in-app purchases through referral marketing and other options.
- Subscription services
- Paid notification for sponsors
- Make a paid travel app or a paid version of your app
Contact your travel app development company for more ideas.
Other Benefits of a Travel Mobile App:
Still not sure why you need a mobile app for your travel business or website? Here are some points to help you understand the benefits of a tourism app.
Instant availability: Your mobile app will give your customers all the information and help they may need when travelling to a specific place, in addition to various facilities like bookings, billing and invoicing, payments, location search, and more.
Location tracking: Location search is one of the basic reasons why travellers use travel mobile apps.
This is a feature that cannot work properly on a mobile website while desktop websites are way more difficult to access when travelling.
All-in-one collaboration: Your travel app will give your users a platform where they can not only find information about everything related to travel but also they can make bookings, read reviews, and much more.
A dedicated platform: Unlike mobile websites, your app won’t need a mobile browser to run. It runs on its own and provides a unique experience to your users.
Better looking and more sophisticated: A mobile app is definitely much better than a mobile website in almost every aspect.
It is better looking for rich graphics and easier navigation and has a much more convenient operating system.
And best of all, it can work with all your mobile’s existing apps, such as camera and GPS, to ensure a wonderful travelling experience for the user.
Make Money: As we mentioned above, there are many ways to earn a regular income from your travel mobile application. All you need is a really good app.
There are many other things like easy updates, easy to promote, authorized (on Play Store or App Store), digital payment systems, integration with local apps and businesses, better content quality, and more.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop Travel App?
Now, let’s come to the final point. How much will it cost you to develop a mobile app for a travel agency? If the same question is troubling your mind as well, here’s the answer.
The cost of developing a travel agency mobile app will depend on a number of things, including the ones mentioned below.
- Whether you are developing it yourself or outsourcing the job to a travel app development company.
- The platform – Android or iOS or any other mobile OS
- Number and extent of features you need in your app
- The approximate time when you want to market (launch) the app.
- The number of people working on the project.
- Whether you are using a free or paid theme.
Overall, the average cost of getting a mobile travel application developed by a professional app development company may range from $1,000 to $50,000, depending on the things mentioned above.
Contact the SAG IPL app development team to discuss your project requirements and get a price quote.
