Building a Hotel Rental App: A Complete Guide
The success of Booking.com and Airbnb was so inspiring that many businesses began to consider developing their own hotel booking software. If you have the same question, this article will provide you with information about e-travel app development, including categories, revenue possibilities, and application functionality. And a cost-effective and high-quality solution would be simple to construct.
A Market Study of E-Travel
70% of individuals rely on their smartphones to help them find a place to visit when they are planning a trip. The world’s pandemic prevention measures are no longer limiting the tourism market’s expansion. It is expected to reach $833.5 billion in 2025, according to industry predictions.
Furthermore, the e-travel and hotel industries are growing at a rapid pace. The numbers speak for themselves: the rental car business is expected to grow to $823.6 million by 2024. According to statistics, more than 70% of worldwide travel sales would be conducted online by 2025. It would be done using mobile applications, which have a five-fold better conversion rate than websites.
As a result, this industry is completely computerized, and engagement will become tighter over time. Growing demand demonstrates that there is no better time than now to establish a booking app that is competitive.
Things to Do to Get Off to a Good Start
To locate our target audience and get off to a good start with your booking app, you need first explain the elements listed below.
Define the sort of booking app you want to use. There are three categories from which to pick.
- Hotel chain applications are used to book a room inside a specified chain of hotels (or a separate hotel that belongs to this chain). Two of the most well-known hotel chain apps are Marriott Rewards and Hilton.
- Users can purchase hotels, plane tickets, vehicles, and other products through online travel agents (OTAs). Hopper, Trip.com, and KAYAK are examples of OTA apps.
- Apps like Hotels.com, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor are hotel aggregators. Their main goal is to provide users with hotel information that they have acquired.
For new business owners, booking aggregator software or online travel agencies (OTAs) may be the most comfortable and promising solutions.
Take a look at the guidelines below to get started with the rental application development.
- Make a decision on a distribution zone. If you want to move your business to the global market, keep in mind that it will cost you money and time. Begin with a modest local market and gradually expand because haste leads to waste.
- Choose a distinct value proposition for your users (UVP). It’s an important factor to keep in mind when hunting for your target market. So, what would the customers receive?
- For some travelers (especially the young), it makes little difference where they sleep in another city or country. That is why they are looking for a low-cost rental. This is something that HostelBookers, HostelWorld, and others all embrace.
- One-day booking options are beneficial for folks who only need to stay in a cheap hotel for one night. It is available through the Dayuse.com service.
- Because of Airbnb clone script, room sharing/apartment booking has become necessary and popular. In addition, the company’s list of services includes short-term rentals.
- Couchsurfing.com allows 12 million tourists around the world to stay for free in someone else’s home.
- Trivago, HotelTonight, and Booking.com all entice customers with last-minute rental deals, which are in high demand among travelers.
- Find and identify hotel information sources: booking apps rely on it heavily. What is the best way to go about it? Aggregators (such as Booking.com) and hotels, for example, enter into agreements. As a result, when booking companies install their software in hotels, they can keep track of a variety of hotel parameters and receive the most up-to-date options.
The API may be used to integrate the hotel parameters into the app. You’ll find the most well-known ones in the list below.
- Customers can browse through over 300,000 properties and compare them to one another using the Amadeus API. Free quotas are provided by the system for you to build and test your API. You can continue to use your free quotas after the bug-hunting period has ended, but you will have to pay for any further calls.
- Customers can use the Travelport API to search for and check rooms in their hotels, as well as pay charges, rent rooms, and cancel reservations. API providers provide hotel managers with a variety of financial options.
- Sabre APIs allow you to search for rental information, book at the best pricing, shop, and maintain your data all from the comfort of your Sabre account. Various factors (such as support and transaction fees, service type, and so on) may have an impact on the pricing structure.
The following extra APIs can be used to add more relevant information to your rental app:
- API for Uber (for a car rental)
- API for Google Places (data about the nearest locations)
- TRAVEL is an online travel agency (multilingual stories about the cities)
- API for Google Maps (charts to show)
Make a decent administration panel. It is also necessary for the long-term success of your rental app because you must correctly manage the created functionality.
A Skeleton MVP to Create a Rental App
MVP is a helpful tool for determining the viability of your idea and identifying what works and what needs to be improved. To make use of it, perform the steps outlined below:
- Carry out an e-travel market survey.
- Choose a type of rental app.
- Make a list of your rental app’s competitors.
- Choose the location where an app will be distributed.
- Create a One-of-a-Kind Value Proposition
- Make a list of features for the MVP version (also list up an additional functionality if you plan to implement it)
- Hire a hospitality-focused IT firm to develop rental software, or assemble an internal (in-house) team.
- Describe your organization’s priorities.
- Participate in the construction process.
- Ensure that your team or software company accurately represents your point of view.
- Create and implement a marketing strategy.
- On the destination marketplaces, launch the hotel rental application.
Collect feedback, scale, and introduce new features
If you don’t know where to begin, you should use such a strategy. What functionality should be implemented, is the question.
Signing up/logging in allows you to contact each customer using a marketing toolkit (as well as retargeting one). It’s worth anticipating the ability to utilize the future app in guest mode without creating an account. You should also provide customers a variety of registration options to fit their preferences. Users will find it easier to check in to social media sites; yet, email registration may help you grow your customer base.
The fundamental purpose of any booking software is to make locating a place to stay as simple as feasible. This is why, when developing a rental app, a thoughtful booking screen is essential. The most crucial user-engagement features, such as geolocation or the “Near me” button, which displays information about nearby areas, should be included.
In a booking app, customers are always looking for places. The following points should be mentioned to make it easier:
- The location (city, hotel date, and address), as well as a map.
- Arrival date: (as well as departure one)
- The number of guest rooms and the maximum number of persons allowed
- Information about pets
Building a Hotel Rental App: Costs, Features, and More
In the TripAdvisor and Booking.com apps, there is a data filtering interface.
Using the Lodging screen, every user should be able to learn more about the accommodations they’ve booked. Every traveler must be informed of the hotel address, number of stars, price list, hotel policies, and other information. They should also have a sharing button and the option to “Add to Favorites.”
Details on the Booking.com lodging screen
It is the most crucial piece of information that users should be aware of. Keep in mind that additional hotel information provided by your rental software assists clients in making decisions about property bookings.
You’ve provided all of the information the user requires through your app, and they’ve decided to book and pay for hotel accommodations. So, what are the next steps? To begin, a checkout screen should be presented so customers can review or enter their personal information (if they haven’t already) prior to making a purchase. The charges should then be paid and processed through the payment mechanism included into your app
In Booking.com, learn how to choose and confirm actions, view booking data, and more.
Keep in mind, however, that such integration is a difficult procedure with many unique elements. As a result, it should be done in close coordination with a skilled IT firm.
Your customers can rebook their rooms or cancel their rent as soon as possible until the last day, according to the cancellation policy. Most hotels do not enable this option due to issues with OTAs and hotel managers.
Increase the number of features in your booking app.
Customers will be drawn to your booking app if it has both basic and distinctive features. You can add them after the MVP version is released after you’ve analyzed all of the user input. The following are some concepts to implement.
A user account is a place where you may save all of your important information, such as personal information or reservations. This information can be used to create tailored emails that you can send to your consumers. Furthermore, consumers would interact with your app more, such as selecting a language or currency or creating wishlists.
You may use push notifications to notify your consumers about special deals and discounts, as well as remind them when to check-in or checkout and even provide weather forecasts. Furthermore, this is a fantastic method to improve the user experience while still earning money.
Customers should be given estimates of availability and costs for accommodation. Information like special airline/railway deals, seasonal trends, and so on should be included in the prediction system to provide this feature. As a result, you can both care for your consumers and earn money.
