People love traveling and seeing the wonders of our world. How great it is to arrange your very own journey! It turns to be pretty convenient to apply your cell phone to make it happen. Travel apps help in solving all issues. Developers have to think hard to create a new tourism platform to stand out among numerous existing ones. Let us tell you what to consider to come up with a great service for travelers. Shall we begin our journey?

Travel apps categories

Have you ever asked yourself what options you can choose from to offer your travel service customers?

As a matter of fact, all mobile applications are similar - their job is to assist in journey planning. On the other hand, every platform decides for itself on the means to achieve such a goal.

Some developers strive to include all travel apps features into one single program, though, this task could be pretty challenging and complicated. Another approach would be to focus on a certain aspect to offer the best possible services to users.

We shall distinguish the below options for you to consider as basic ones for your travel app:

# Booking accommodations

Obviously, it’s a significant aspect to find the right place for rest. Depending on travelers’ budget such kind of platforms should find and reserve a hostel room, private apartment, or luxury hotel facility for overnight.

Take a quick pick at Booking and Airbnb services. Their experience will give you a few useful hints.

# Flight assistance

Don’t you think it’s so convenient to book flight tickets online? All users need is a cell phone with a particular platform installed to buy tickets they choose. Skyscanner and Hopper serve the mentioned purpose.

# Tours reservation

Travelers enjoy the possibility to book exciting tours and excursions by means of their smartphones. Such an option is in high demand, indeed. It’s one of Triposo and GetYourGuide platforms conveniences. 

# Travel guides

In case all previous propositions didn’t receive any response in your heart, this one shall hopefully impress you. We are talking about a city guide option. Similar applications, like Sygic Travel and TripAdvisor City Guides, serve for travelers to find the way in unfamiliar cities and to identify sightseeings they shouldn’t miss.

# Food search

Visiting unknown towns and cities tourists take advantage of online services to locate great dining places. Urbanspoon shall help travelers try local foods in restaurants. It’s quite handy to have such service at hand, as looking for a restaurant in an unfamiliar place could be pretty challenging.

Moving on, let’s devote some time to travel service key features to make your application prosper.

Travel platforms main functionalities

The key to a successful travel app is the combination of various amazing features and characteristics to ensure the best user experience. Developers should come up with a program helping their users to enjoy their traveling, solving the biggest travel issues. In the case of developing budget limitations, the MVP model could be a good start. As time passes, new functionalities can be introduced.

Thus, for your service to be sought after, make sure to install the following features into your travel app.

• Reservation options

It’s definitely a must-have feature for travel services. Here it’s about booking everything: accommodations, flight tickets, taxi, restaurants, excursions, etc. Think about your target customers. What would they prefer?

• List of things

Your audience will appreciate the care you show them, as such functionality shall remind them to bring on a trip really important things. Travelers only have to provide some details on their trip and, in case it’s about summer vacations, for instance, sun lotion will be on the list.

• Geolocation

For travelers, it’s important to understand where they are at the moment and what is around them. Thus, the geofencing feature is a must for travel apps.

• Ratings

You know quite well how much people enjoy all kinds of ratings of restaurants, hotels, and other establishments. Providing tourists with such a system you help them make the final decision avoiding some suspicious places with negative ratings.

• Feedback

Reviews and comments are also pretty popular nowadays. Such an approach could be applied for your mobile platform itself and for those accommodations and restaurants your service helped to go with. No need to be scared of negative comments regarding your service. Just remember to reply to each one of them and be polite.

• Search feature

The advanced search seems to be a mandatory characteristic of a successful travel platform.

• Weather forecast

Isn’t it so helpful for travelers to get info on weather conditions at their destination? Android and iOS cell phones surely have such functionality. However, they aren’t always accurate enough. Thus, the mentioned feature will be your service advantage.

• Maps and itineraries

It’s not that difficult to get lost in unknown places. Therefore, tourists will appreciate the possibility to build itineraries by means of their devices to find their way. Users should simply point their current location, add destination and route type (by car or on foot, etc.) and the way is paved! Think how great it would be to make the feature work offline as well!

• Language assistance

How great would it be to apply a travel service to turn users into polyglots! Unfortunately, it’s beyond our power. However, what you can do is to provide an ice-breaking tool to cope with the language barrier. A mobile translator or a phrasebook will perfectly work.

• Mobile chat

That would be a perfect solution for those users who prefer to get support 24/7. You could take advantage of chatbots for that period when you aren’t available.

• Emergency calls

We wish your users to be safe during their journey. However, unforeseen circumstances do happen. If you supply your travel platform with important phone numbers of specific services, your travelers will feel safer. The emergency call button would be appreciated as well.

• Converters of currencies

That functionality shall help travelers plan the budget beforehand. And the exchange rate will be already taken into consideration. That’s handy, right?

Wondering how to make money on your travel service? Let’s see right away what are your options.

Tools to monetize your travel platform

As a developer, you would like your app to drive revenue for you. There exist great approaches to make your dream come true. Here they are:

• Service commission. With a travel app, you become a true mediator between users and hotels, restaurants, taxi, airline companies, etc. Thus, you receive your commissions. You simply have to establish cooperative relationships with those establishments to make it all happen.

• In-app advertising. Multiple online services take advantage of such a tool. They manage to keep efficient communication with their audience and make a good profit.

• Paid application. At the same time, it might be challenging to prove to customers that the service is worth being paid for without even trying it.

• Lite & Pro. After clients try a free version (Lite) and enjoy it, they are more willing to purchase Pro package additional features.

• In-app purchase. There are no limitations here. Feel free to use your imagination to find what to sell through such a channel.

And remember - you develop your travel app for users to enjoy. Knowing your target audience and giving customers what they are looking for will make your platform practical and popular, so moneywise you’ll enjoy it as well. 

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