A Guide On Hotel Booking App Development [With Cost Bifurcation]

Are you a hotel owner thinking about how to expand the business? If yes, then all you need is an app. And if you have no clue about that, you have come to the right place. We, at Space-O, have come up with an extensive guide on “How To Make A Hotel Booking App” That Expands Your Business. And we have the best app development portfolio in the town to prove it works.

How are we so sure?

Hotel booking apps and other modern technology influence the booking decisions of 70% of travellers. And it is estimated that more than a third of Hotel Bookings in Europe will be done via mobile and website apps. Thus, to make a hotel
app is never needed more than now.

Therefore, let’s get going.

Just to make sure that we start right from the basics, let’s first discuss:

What is a Hotel Booking Application?

Hotel booking application is a web or mobile application that helps to book hotels, resorts, hostels, Bnbs, and similar booking services online.

With such a hotel booking application, you can book a hotel and the service anytime, any day, and from anywhere. These apps have restructured the booking process and still have not touched their true potential.

With more and more technological advances, these apps help you book everything from door to door. Right from the taxi, flight, train, to the restaurant, if you are on a trip, a hotel app is all you need.

For further classification, successful hotel booking application can be grouped into three basic categories.

1. Travel Agents

   These apps help travellers with not only the hotels but with everything they might need on a trip such as car rentals, taxies, and flights. Such apps majorly focus on travel packages offered by travel agencies. Therefore, these make all-in-one apps for tourists.

2. Aggregators

   These apps are built primarily for searching for hotels. These apps compare numerous hotels based on categories like location, budget range, and room type, just to name a few. These booking aggregator apps let users choose the best deal for their stay and are ideal for non-tourists travellers as well.

3. Hoteliers

   These apps for hotel booking are for the chains of the hotel website. With these apps, users can book rooms in a specific hotel chain. These are generally for elite hotel firms.

How to Develop a Hotel Booking Mobile App?

Here, we will discuss the hotel booking app development in simple steps. So, get ready because here it comes.

1. Idea and Goal

   Defining your idea and business objectives needs good research for hotel booking app development. And when we talk about the room reservation app development process, it has a bit of a different approach.

   First of all, you need to research the niche market thoroughly for developing hotel booking application. Everything from the current trends, competitors, and demographics of the target audience for hotel booking app development.

   After researching the market, you need to ask the following questions to yourself:

   • How is my app different from others?
   • What problem does it solve?
   • For which city or area is it being made?

   If you are satisfied with these answers, you can define your interests (like budget, review score- a bar of guest reviews and average score, proximity, reservation policy, etc.) to make app. You may think to start providing alternate dates or routes, car rental deals, and local events as part of the service and move on to the next point to create a hotel booking apps.

2. Wireframe & Prototype

   According to the defined idea and goal, the wireframe and prototype are designed. This gives you a ground for further development tools. In the wireframing part, you have to design the basic UI/UX components like interface, elements, functions, and features for app business.

   This entire step includes tasks like project setup, architecture setup, repository setup, libraries integration, local models creation, and local database setup.

   And in the prototype part, you have to design the early business model of the app to feel the user interface and user experience.

3. Backend Development

   In this development stage, the finalized prototype is brought to life by back-end coding. This has to be done very carefully, as a single bug can delay the whole process of app development. It all depends on which platform are you developing a hotel booking application on. Is it for Android, iOS, or both? You have to follow the platform guidelines according to that. So, if you are looking for custom application development in Toronto, you need a company that develops apps as per your requirements.

4. Visual Design

   After the structure is ready, the next step to make a hotel booking app is finishing. Visual design is the step where all the animations, videos, images, and graphics are placed strategically for an effective hotel reservation system design. These are vital to the overall customer experience of the app.

5. Testing

   Testing is the stage where it all begins. The product after the final visual design is tested throughout. Every element and every single line of code is tested many times to make sure of proper functionalities. The user feedback then is given back to the designers, and they start all over again, right from the wireframe and prototype.

   This cycle is performed until the app comes to perfection. You need to keep in mind that hotel booking app development is an iterative process. Then, scan the QR code or send the app installation connection to your device once the app is created perfectly.

   If you think this process is very time-consuming and requires technical knowledge that you do not possess right now, then we would highly recommend you to hire a hotel booking app development company. It would make your job easier than you can imagine.

   If you are struggling to pick from various features for hotel mobile applications, not to worry. We have handpicked a few features that hotel apps must-have.

Features of Hotel Booking Mobile App

While making a hotel reservation app, some of the niche-specific features have become hotel industry standards. These MVP features to make a hotel booking app can make or break the business. Moreover, the features are the idiosyncrasies of your mobile app. Thus, it requires all your attention.

Thus, it requires all your attention.

So let’s take a look.

1. Sign-in/log-in

   First thing first. Any hotel booking app should have a sign-in/log-in feature. This allows the customers to create a user profile for user-specific information.

   Customers can also sign in to make apps with their social media accounts like Facebook, Google, or Twitter accounts for simplifying the process. With the support of APIs, you can enforce the Social Login function easily.

   The user profile helps you to maintain a customer relationship with guests and boost customer loyalty as well as brand loyalty.

2. Booking

   Booking is another important feature of any hotel reservation app. Thus, booking integration is a must to be included in your mobile application, along with the hotel details screen.

   This allows users to book rooms 24×7 without needing to contact you or visit any of your physical offices.

   You can further simplify it for you and your app users by accepting various payment methods such as through credit cards, payment apps, and also an option to pay at check-out. Allow the user to pay with just a click to encourage them to book. You can even add room reservation features to check the authenticity of users.

3. Cancellation

   Many times, a user has to cancel the booking from booking history, and you should assist them to do so without making any calls by integrating a cancellation policy. Making sure that the user can cancel the booking at any stage gives them trust in the admin panel and increases customer satisfaction.

4. Smooth Search

   Amongst all the hotel room availabilities, the users must be able to find the appropriate deal for their needs. A smooth search feature lets them do exactly that. They should be able to search for deals according to check-in check-out dates, locality, price range, and other amenities.

   What else can you integrate to enhance the searching process?

   Once they have all the search results screen, offer them the sort and filter system that can save a lot of their time and energy. And the faster they get what they want, the more chances are for you to get their business. Therefore, a smooth search process is necessary for any reservation app.

5. Alerts and Push Notifications

   The best way to keep your customers updated with the latest offers and discount is by push notifications.

   And not only for the special offers, but you can notify the user for various purposes such as itinerary notes, change in rates, alternative routes, and the best value alternative.

   These notifications can take off many things from the user’s mind to remember and make them stay calm.

   Other than the notifications, the hotel app should also send alerts like weather forecasts, traffic, and scheduled travel plans. And once you commit to features and tech tips, you can create a hotel booking app by seeking a reputable Tech Partner.

How Does Hotel Booking App Work?

Any basic hotel app works in a very simple yet effective way. The fundamental function of any mobile app for hotel reservations is a booking engine. It makes sure that the real-time user data is synchronized with all the channels for booking.

Let’s go step by step.

1. Booking

   The hotel app provides users with real-time booking options and data about the following.

   • Available Rooms
   • Room rates
   • Description of rooms
   • Included amenities
   • Photographs
   • Deals and discounts
   • Miscellaneous

   You may have more than one channel of online booking in addition to offline booking to enable book hotel rooms, itineraries for holidays and flights. Thus, the hotel finding app makes sure that this information is in synchronization with every platform.

   After the user has finalized on booking a room, the app lets the user book the room and accepts the payment as per the user’s convenience.

2. Updating the Information

   After the booking is done, the information needs to be updated on every platform and distribution channel. If the booking system is done online, this process is done automatically. And if the booking is done offline, then the hotel owner has to feed the data to the booking engine via the internet. This way, users will also be able to autocomplete their personal details via the checkout process.

3. Confirmation

   Once the data is updated to all the various distribution channels, a confirmation email is sent to both the customer and the booking manager. This includes all the information necessary for the user such as printable booking confirmation that includes payment details. In addition to the email, it sends an SMS to the user too.

4. Ratings and Reviews

   At the time of check-out, the user again gets an email and SMS confirming the check-out. This also includes the invoice and the request to rate and review the booking services. This is a great way to get rich feedback.

   And once again all the distributing channels are updated with the room availability along with the review of the customer.

   Hence, Aren’t you excited to have your room reservation application? So, without any further ado, let’s get started.

Cost to Build Hotel Booking App

We, as a leading mobile application development company, know that the first thing that arises when we head out building an app like booking.com is the cost of it. Right?

Almost everything depends on the cost. And likewise, the cost of developing a mobile app depends on a lot of factors. Everything from its basic features, platform (Google Play Store or App Store), the time required, and the charges of the app builder.

The average charges for an app builder are around $50 per hour and an app usually takes around 200 to more than 700 working hours, depending on its complexity.

Benefits of Hotel Booking Application

Hotel Booking Applications create a win-win situation for both parties,- the hotel owner and the guests. Are you curious to know how?

This also attracts the thrifty travelers and travellers who do not like planning at all. This pattern is also seen in digital travel sales that rise annually.

Some Interesting USPs for the Travel and Hospitality Industry

What can you do uniquely in booking a hotel? It might come up as a simple process without much room for innovations and USPs.

But, behold that thought. We have gathered a few USPs that proved to be game-changers in both the travel industry and the hospitality industry.

1. Last-minute Deals

   The other name for the travel plan is uncertainty. No matter how good of a planner you are, the traveller will find some window to catch you unguarded. And for such scenarios, apps like HotelQuickly and HotelTonight allow same night bookings for the online travel agency at the last minute.

   This also attracts the thrifty travelers and travellers who do not like planning at all. This pattern is also seen in digital travel sales that rise annually.

2. Low-cost Deals

   The new travel trend encourages the wanderers to get the most out of it and use a bed just to drop dead after a long day. All they want is a room where they can put their stuff and sleep for a few hours. They do not care about luxury and amenities.

   For such travelers, hotel reservation apps have come up with low-cost deals and even well-known hotel chains make use of this strategy.

   On the other side, by proposing any extra incentives like the variety of revenue streams such as subscriptions, ads, commissions, fees, and numerous deals from various booking systems, you can raise your brand recognition.

3. Shared Rooms

   Everyone was speculating about the USP of Airbnb. Many pundits said it is not going to work out well. But to the contrary, the room sharing with strangers has made Airbnb one of the mogul of the hotel chain apps.

   Most of the travellers want to make new friends on the way and it gives a great opportunity for them to meet new people and make the trip memorable. Other than that, sharing is always economical.

4. Free Stay

   Yes, you heard it right. Couchsurfing is a travel app that provides free stay at locals’ places. It offers a glimpse of the genuine texture of travelling which is local culture & lifestyle, food, and language. The whole app relies on goodwill and friendships. Wonder who uses such an app? Over 20 million travellers use it in more than 230,000 cities worldwide.

5. Ultra Short Stays

   One of the most innovative USPs is Dayuse.com’s short stays. It allows users to book a room only for the day. It targets the one who likes to explore during the day and travel during the nights. All they want is room to relax, freshen up, and get going. For those, it is the best option.

So what is your USP?

Excellent! We have an app that has all the necessary ingredients for a great booking app development. But to make your hotel reservation application work smoothly and consistently, you need to integrate a few APIs.

So let’s take a closer look.

Let’s look at some major players in the hotel app industry to get a better idea to make a hotel booking app for your business.

Who are the Major Players in the Online Hotel Booking Market?

Isn’t it great? This is why we recommend you get your online hotel booking app ASAP.

To explain to you exactly how this is possible, let’s take you through the working of hotel apps.

Given all these benefits, your travel business can take your profits to the next level.

To explain to you exactly how this is possible, let’s take you through the working of hotel apps.

Conclusion

We have not left any stone unturned in this complete guide on “How to make a hotel reservation”. Right from what & why to the cost of making. After reading this blog, you might get answers to various questions that you may have for developing hotel booking mobile application. So, share your mobile app ideas with us and we will guide you further.

As we have years of experience in developing custom solutions, we are a leading hotel booking app development services providing company in Canada. Space-O can give you solutions to problems that you never had.

We hope you found what you were looking for, and if you have any queries or doubts, do not hesitate to contact us. We will be more than glad to solve your issues. And if you want to read more about such interesting topics, we welcome you to subscribe to our newsletter and get such interesting topics directly into your inbox. Thanks for your undivided attention.