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But in many cases, it can take quite a while to book a room as per your choice if you still need to start using any Hotel booking application development services or products. Many startups have already made it convenient for frequent travelers for users, in general, to find and book rooms as per their accommodation. It is a flourishing business, and various platforms are beginning to create related applications sooner. Understanding your business model and targeted users is essential to create an online hotel booking application. In this article, we will learn about each of these dimensions in-depth, along with the features and the cost of developing a hotel booking app.
The Business Models Of Hotel Booking Applications
Before starting any on-demand app development solution, it is essential to analyze the business models. It is because your product will only come into effect once it is backed by a sought-after business model and relevant strategies to fulfill the requirement of your targeted customers or users. There are mainly four models in hotel booking applications: merchant, advertising, aggregator, and dedicated models. Let us learn about each one of them in brief:
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Merchant Business Model - With this model, you can quickly sign the hotel contract to receive the correct rooms. Once the contract is signed, you can sell all the rooms through your application to guests. Almost every PWA Development company uses this model, all thanks to the resourcefulness and broad reach of the companies.
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Aggregator Business Model - This model is quite simple and widely used for applications generally connected to online hotel booking services. When a user searches for a hotel room or a place to stay, a list of hotels with available spaces at various prices appears. Then, it gets easy for the user to choose the appropriate option and satisfy their requirements with a hotel booking application.
This business model for any Hotel Booking System suits customers who prefer comparing offers from various hotels. One of the powerful platforms that use this model for their hotel booking services is Booking.com.
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Advertising Business Model - This model is similar to the aggregator model as it also involves listing available rooms at different offers. The difference between both models lies in how each of them makes money. The platforms used in this model earn their profits based on pay-per-click services. The websites in this model make users visit the booking page of any accommodation provider. And when any provider receives a lead, the respective platform gets a certain amount for converting the user to its potential pointer.
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Dedicated Business Model - The Dedicated Business Model is suitable for you if you have several regular customers and a well-established business. With this model, you can quickly develop a hotel booking on-demand app development solution for your business. You can also provide several facilities, like reserving rooms, concierge services, bonuses, loyalty programs, etc., to your customers.
The Core Features Of Hotel Booking Applications
Users will have certain features in mind that they expect from your hotel booking app. A mobile application development company's responsibility is to ensure that even the basic model has the essential features so that users can easily access the application. Suppose you want your customers to be engaged. In that case, they must have all these features to make quick and easy hotel reservations. Below you will find a list of core hotel booking app features worth considering. You can also upgrade your application with all of these features.
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Hotel Search/Reservation - Searching for hotel rooms allows users to plan a perfect stay. Users want to avoid going through thousands of hotel options, and that's where the hotel booking criteria come in. These criteria include the location, number of guests, arrival date, stay, etc. Through all these factors, users can speed up their search process. The application must allow users to select the city or region they are going to, along with setting dates for their departure and pick-up. Similarly, while making reservations, the application must allow users to highlight the number of individuals staying, including children or pets.
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Filters For Booking - We have seen how important it is to provide multiple features to users in a hotel booking app. It helps users narrow their search and actively look for their requirements without wasting too much time. For example, the users may be looking for a budget-friendly option for hotels close to airports or bus stops. Also, filters or sorting options will allow business professionals to display their offers. Still, changing the order in which they are displayed on the screen is essential.
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Personal Accounts - If you are willing to develop a hotel booking management solution, you can allow users to create their accounts on your application. Any PWA Development company can do the required job with absolute efficiency, and it will enable users to keep track of the available discounts on your application. Their user profiles will also help them accept all the information about the latest deals for their upcoming bookings. You can turn this to your advantage by using users' data to provide them with personalized offers or loyalty programs.
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Notification And Preview - Users will appreciate your providing pop-ups and messages that can inform them of their booking information. You can send personalized traveling deals to your users with the help of push notifications as well. Through app notifications, you can inform the users about their check-in and check-out times, discounts, overheads, etc. Secondly, through room review, you can boost the conversion rates of your application. You can place beautiful images of your hotel room and allow users to see and feel them. Other than the traditional gallery, you can consider including 3D tours or virtual tours of the rooms.
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Payment Gateway - All the efforts can only prove worthwhile if you include a secure payment gateway for the users. Any payment gateway in the Hotel booking app development solution will allow users to make payments with a few clicks. The application can also use their credit or debit card information to safeguard instant payments. You can integrate popular online payment gateway options like PayPal, Omise, Stripe, etc.
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Settings - You could be getting users from all over the world, so it would be highly convenient for them to use your application if you allow multilingual and multicultural support. It will give a user-friendly edge to your application, and your users can choose from the available services. Keep one thing in mind - the more features you will include in the app, the more convenient it will become for your users.
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Review System And Interactive Interface - This is a much-highlighted feature that you can consider having in your hotel booking application. The review/comment system is a central section everyone looks at in any application before accessing the services. It is prioritized as per the customer's authenticity and acts as a personal recommendation. While booking hotel rooms, many users check for others' opinions and experiences. You can also integrate an online chat feature in the application, enabling instant communication between customers and service managers. The app can include chat messages, documents, and image-sharing options.
The more features your application supports, the more likely it will get featured in the list of the top applications in the online app stores.
Good Hotel Booking Features
If you are willing to create an advanced application to make your Hotel Booking System attractive for the users, go through this feature. It would be in the best interest of your platform once you have validated your hotel booking application. By reading all of these features, you can facilitate your clients at a fully-fledged level. Let us have a look at the necessary components:
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Flight Search And Booking Tickets - Your users will come from different corners. Hence, you can provide flight search and ticket booking options to them. Alongside helping with lodging, you can also provide an opportunity for travelers to book and organize their flight tickets.
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Car Rentals - If you manage to have this feature in your application, it will give an advantage to your business. Try considering third-party car rental integration services with Uber or regional service providers. This will help your users opt for car rentals per their interests.
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Recommendation Engine - To create a multi-functional booking and traveling application, you can allow your users to get recommendations for nearby places, restaurants, and events to visit. With the help of GPS, they can enter their current location and get suggestions accordingly. Photos and videos of the places can further accompany all these solutions. Various on-demand app development solutions have already started integrating this feature into their applications.
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Analytics - Hotel booking apps should include analytical services on the back end. Analytics can help your business analyze user behavior and monitor the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns and strategies. This will also help you get preferences for every guest visiting your place. You can collect all this data and provide your users with exceptional offers and loyalty programs.
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Interactive Floor Plans - This segment in the hotel booking application still needs to gain more importance. Hotels come in different layouts and sizes, and it might be difficult for the users to navigate their way. Hence, you can provide an interactive floor plan with primary forms to prevent your users from getting lost in or outside a hotel. This will help them to understand the premises, and it will also save time.
How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Hotel Booking Application?
To get an estimate of how much money you will require to create a hotel booking application, you have to understand the requirement per hour. This is because almost every mobile app development company follows the hourly basis of charging for creating the app. Considering the information on wireframing the hotel booking app, you can get an estimate based on the time spent on every feature and the technology stack. Also, the cost can be highly selected for popular mobile platforms, i.e., Android and iOS. We have provided a rough estimate for a hotel booking application on the website. To get the approximate cost, you can multiply these numbers by the hourly rate of your developers.
For must-have features:
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Hotel Search And Reservation - IOS and Android require 10 to 24 hours, while websites require 16 to 24 hours.
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Filters - For iOS and Android, it requires 10 to 22 hours; for websites, it requires 10 to 16 hours.
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Personal Accounts - For iOS and Android, it requires 15 to 30 hours; for websites, it requires 16 to 24 hours.
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Room Previews - For iOS and Android, it requires 8 to 30 hours; for websites, it requires 8 to 15 hours.
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Notifications - IOS and Android require 10 to 30 hours, while websites require 16 to 24 hours.
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Payment Gateway - For iOS and Android, it requires 10 to 40 hours; for websites, it requires 20 to 44 hours.
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Settings - For iOS and Android, it requires 10 to 24 hours; for websites, it requires 16 to 24 hours.
Hence, based on the criteria mentioned earlier, any PWA Development company will require 65 to 190 hours for Android, 100 to 200 for iOS, and 100-250 for websites.
Read More: MVP Features to Create a Hotel Booking App
For Good Features
It would cost you similarly for good features, and you can get a rough estimate by multiplying the hours by the developer's rate.
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Flight Search And Reservations - iOS requires 10 to 12, Android 10 to 24 hours, and for websites, 24 to 40 hours.
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Car Rental - 24 to 48 for iOS, Android requires 24 to 30 hours, and for websites, 24 to 40 hours.
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Recommendation Engine - 18 to 42 for iOS 18 to 42, Android requires 24 to 40 hours, and for websites, 28 to 44 hours.
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Analytics - 4 to 10 for iOS and Android requires 8 to 12 hours, and for websites, 16 to 32 hours.
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Interactive Floor Plan - 10 to 42 for iOS and Android requires 30 to 46 hours, and for websites, 15 to 40 hours.
Hence, iOS development will require 60 to 140 hours, Android development will require 19 to 200 hours, and web development will need 100-200 hours. It is also recommended to add the application's core features to launch MVP. Once you update your application, adding various other elements is easy. Hence, hiring a top-notch mobile app development company is always recommended to help you get an excellent product that is worth the investment.
The Alternative Approach To Hotel Booking App Development
The actual cost of a hotel booking application depends entirely on the features and stages you must include. For example, the two most prominent stages of a hotel booking app are iPhone and Android, highlighting the app's continuation. And if the application requires changes, it becomes expensive for the platform to bear the charges of making all the changes.
Additionally, the overall expense of creating the application is highly influenced by the factors in which it is developed. The costs of the localities differ from the charges for outsourcing the solution.
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US-based engineers charge around $100 to $200 per hour
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Eastern Europe-based engineers charge about $100 to $180 per hour
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Indian engineers charge about $10 to $70 per hour
The overall development of hotel booking applications can cost you around $10000 to $20000 for an average application. If you are willing to make an application enriched with advanced features, the cost may increase further.
Conclusion
Hotel booking applications have the potential to simplify lodging for various users. Many Hotel Booking Systems are set to adapt to the forward-thinking of hospitality services. This is further stretched with the mobile-first approach to deliver ultimate user experiences and achieve maximum brand advocacy for the platforms. You can easily break into the industry with your incredible absolution and assign any app development team to bring your project to life.
