How Much Does it Cost to Make a Booking App?
Mobile technology has significantly advanced in recent years. Lately, the booking industry has become quite popular among users. We have seen many successful booking apps such as Airbnb and Booking.com that have pushed the travel industry forward to phenomenal growth. Creating a booking app can cost around $15,000 minimum to a maximum of $35,000 depending on the features you choose to include in it.
There has been an increase in the demand for hotel reservation websites and applications. This has led many startups, entrepreneurs and hospitality professionals to wonder how to create a booking app to achieve success in this ever-growing, popular domain.
This blog will discuss the features, benefits, and cost of a booking app development.
Criteo’s research revealed that:
- 80% of last-minute bookings are made through mobile phones
- 45% of bookings for Online Travel agency (OTA) fall on mobile devices
- The conversion rates on mobile are five times higher than on the mobile web
These figures further prove that mobile applications are the ultimate way for travellers to book and stay anywhere and anytime.
Benefits of a Booking App
Benefits to Customers
Customers get many benefits such as security, discounts, reliability, convenience and efficiency. They also get the best value for money and can arrange the entire trip from the comfort of their homes.
Benefits to the Business Owner
Business owners can get unlimited benefits such as user engagement, user variety, multiple revenue streams and much more.
Benefits to Hotel
Hotels get direct bookings through the app and can sell them at a higher or lower rate depending upon them. Furthermore, they get automation, user-data, immediate reach out, brand promotion, customer loyalty and much more.
Booking & Cancellation
The users are redirected easily to the Payment Gateway once they have picked a hotel and can make the payment using various options such as PayPal, net banking, credit/debit cards and much more. In case a customer wants to cancel a booking, many hotel booking services offer free cancellation policies that can be made within the first 24 hours of the booking.
Accommodation View
The customer can have a good look at the hotel they will be staying in as they have images of the room and the whole hotel available on the application.
Features of a Booking App
Information about the Hotel
Customers should be able to find all the information about the hotels in the app, such as the number of rooms available, the prices, discounts, and other related things.
Room-Cost Feature
This feature helps the users to make their bookings easily and rather quickly. The app should have a room cost calculator feature, so the user knows about the room’s total cost according to their preferences.
Push Notification
This is a vital feature. Users can get notified about available bookings and the updates on the booking they have already made on mobile phones without contacting the hotel.
Help and Support
This feature provides the app users 24/7 support from the hotels if they face any problems or have any questions about their stay.
Online Receipt
If the user wishes to make payments online through the app for bookings, they are provided with a digital receipt of the payment made online. This online receipt is then sent to them on their emails by the booking app.
A Travel Assistant
This feature acts as an assistant to the users. It helps provide the users with any information they need regarding the hotel, their stay, the price, the food and the places nearby to visit or anything else they need help with.
The Currency Converter
This feature must be included in the booking app. It helps the users convert their currency to check their actual price in other currencies and estimate a budget for their trip.
Advanced Features
Trip Planner
This feature helps the user plan the entire trip as sometimes they want to visit multiple places and need numerous hotel bookings.
Places Nearby
Users can search for places nearby such as tourist spots, restaurants, and malls and much more through this feature.
Comparison of Hotels
Users can check the rating and reviews of other hotels compared to the hotels they are interested in, and they can view the images and take the hotel tour through the app.
How Much Does it Cost to Make a Booking App?
The cost of making a Booking app depends on the platforms you want to launch your application on, such as iOS or Android.
It also depends on the location the app is being developed as different countries charge differently per hour.
- US-based developers charge around $100 – $200 per hour
- Eastern Europe based developers charge around $100 – $180 per hour
- India based developers charge around $20 – $60 per hour
Keeping all of the features mentioned above in mind, and the developer rates per hour, the hotel booking app’s total cost with basic features may be around $10,000 to $15,000. If you were to make an app with advanced features, the price might rise to $20,000 to $35,000.
Conclusion
In recent years, the hospitality and hotel industry is changing its routes and moving towards a more digital way.
Through booking apps, you can enhance your business prospects. You can also attract an increasing number of customers who do not like to waste their precious time making reservations through traditional methods.
