When the world turns digital, how can the hotel booking industry left behind? According to Criteo, by the end of 2025, more than 70% of worldwide sales for travel and tourism will be online transactions. Even further, the projected size of the online travel market is expected to reach $1.56 trillion by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 12.99%.
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Online hotel booking apps such as Airbnb, Hooper, Booking.com, and Expedia have revolutionized the travel and tourism industry and as a result, more and more enterprises are now looking forward to online hotel booking app development to expand their business or venture into this new giant niche.
The rapid development of the hotel booking segment indicates that it is high time that young entrepreneurs venture into the hotel booking app market and leverage this lucrative hospitality business for quick ROI and sure-shot revenue.
According to Statista, there has been a whopping growth in the revenue of booking holdings worldwide between 2007 to 2022. Other figures for online tour and travel booking are also impressive as more than half of mobile app users prefer booking their hotels and touring options through apps they have; furthermore, the industry is likely to report a growth of CAGR 13.6% by the end of this year and probably continue at an even higher pace in the coming decade.
The online travel industry generated revenue worth more than $800 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.58% between 2021 and 2027.
According to Statista, the Travel app market was forecast to continuously increase between 2023 and 2027 by in total 0.8 billion U.S. dollars (+64 percent).
According to a report from TripAdvisor, 17% of people in the United States have bought some form of travel app subscription to help them plan their travels.
The revenue generated through the hotel segment has grown manifold in the last few years especially after the lockdown due to the unprecedented pandemic, people from all around the world wanted to quench their thirst for touring and traveling getaways.
Source: Statista
The online hotel booking has significantly increased and it is likely to continue in coming years.
The best part of the mobile app development for hotel booking is the win-win deal it offers to all users and stakeholders. Here are the benefits of Hotel booking app development for each end-user –
The biggest beneficiary of hotel booking apps is the users. The latest trend and habits of users to get everything on their mobile phones have made them feel that all services and products they want should be done through the tips of their fingers, and they are right! They are provided with almost everything they want through mobile applications, hotel booking being one of them.
The advantages for customers include –
The win-win deal also includes hoteliers’ advantages through online booking for hotels. This makes better sense even to those hotel owners whose business is absolutely fine on the ground but still, suffer from some slack seasons. The advantage of online hotel booking app development is that hoteliers can expand their business beyond geographical boundaries and can take bookings from all over the world that generally does not happen as offline hotel bookings are highly dependent on visitors and footfalls to the hotels.
The benefits of building an online hotel booking app for your hotel business are:
It is not always that hoteliers initiate hotel booking app development. Since it is a promising business, many enterprises and big companies have started investing in the online hotel booking app business.
They own the app, not the hotel. Still, they get a great benefit out of creating an online hotel booking application.
So now that you are thorough with the online hotel booking software system and its benefits, let us check out the types of hotel booking mobile apps as it would give you a better insight into the hotel business.
Broadly, there are many types of online hotel booking systems. Here is a quick look at them–
The marketplace is an online platform that brings all the hoteliers in one place and allows them to list their properties with details such as locations, prices, and amenities. The admin can have control over such profiles.
As the term suggests, the hotel chain app includes all the properties under one company. The app will contain all the locations of the hotel chain so the travelers can select the place of their choice and make the reservation.
This app is good for customers who need a last-minute reservation facility to make their instant plans successful. Such apps allow customers to reserve hotel rooms in a few taps for emergency travel.
For customers looking to book hotels in advance before a year or a few months, this type of app enables them to do so. Expedia and others are popular advance hotel booking apps that follow this traditional model.
This type of hotel app is a blend of two kinds of hotel apps- advanced hotel booking apps and last-minute hotel booking apps. So, this app facilitates booking in a few minutes.
In the era of super apps, all mobile applications have extended features beyond a particular industry or niche. Online hotel booking apps, too, have many revenue models and types; alternatively, everything can be included in one super app or you can call a master hotel booking app. Nevertheless, if we are to tell the basic business model types of hotel booking apps, then there are three models to check out.
In this type of revenue model, the online hotel booking and reservation app should include features for booking and canceling hotel rooms through. It is a general mobile application that benefits everyone i.e., tourists, hoteliers, admins, or app owners. It is aimed at targeting general users and generating good revenues.
The new-age online hotel booking app could include features of a larger scale to cater to the needs of the present market demand. Almost all industries have revenue models as additional perks to attract or allure consumers and customers. The travel mobile application can smartly rely on coupons, discounts, and various offers as its business model. The mobile app for hotel booking includes irresistible offers that users cannot simply overlook. Such apps only work as mediators and assure business to hotels and hence earn money without getting much into hotel management.
Hotel consolidator or aggregator app revenue model is built on the largest scale. Large-sized businesses or corporate houses book hotel rooms and cottages in bulk and they reserve them for a specific purpose such as providing these rooms as guest houses to their elite clients visiting from other cities or countries.
Alternatively, multinational companies, too, have such bookings for their employees in case they are outlanders and are likely to take some time (buffer period) to find their own accommodation. Large corporate groups have permanent hotel bookings year-round irrespective of the visits or no visits by their clients.
Features are the foundations of any mobile application. The most important features of a hotel booking app would help your business succeed in achieving its goal and vision. There is no upper limit to the number of features that you can wish to have in your hotel booking app but staying rooted by having a list of must-have features in the app will make it easier for you to be realistic and make the best decisions. While it is up to you to include as many features as possible during your online hotel booking app development, here is a list of some basic ones you should not miss.
A brief of features for three different panels- user app, hotel owner app, and admin panel showcases features to include while developing your online hotel booking app.
Users are quite specific about their choices and they do not want to waste time looking for features that they do not intend to. Search bars and filters for online hotel booking applications would work as a sure-shot strategy to provide users (here tourists or visitors with more specific choices!) with exactly what they want. For instance, filtering for the price range and start ratings would delist many hotels and show users the places of their choice saving a lot of time browsing through hundreds of results otherwise.
Users can quickly search for hotels by selecting the desired location, time, and other details. This feature makes finding and reserving a hotel room the best experience in a few taps.
After finding the hotels based on user preferences, detailed information about the hotel is viewed, such as room types, extra amenities, photos of rooms, pricing details, reviews, and others. It helps users make the right decision faster.
As basic as it sounds, the online hotel booking app should have the feature of hotel room booking! It allows users to search the hotels and also rooms instantly through details (such as location, photos, check-in and check-out time, whether pets are allowed, or any such information)
Hotels, when targeting a global audience, need to deliver a unique experience to the users. It requires changing the language according to users’ location. For example, when a user accesses the hotel app, the app automatically detects the location. It shows a pop-up to the users to change to their native language for the best experience. Providing such local features would be an added advantage for your hotel booking app.
Users can easily reserve rooms in the hotel by selecting the number of guests and dates for the hotel reservation.
Users always look for promotions and discounts before making online hotel reservations. This app feature displays the range of offers that users can check and avail to get hotel reservations and bookings at competitive rates.
Users can avoid mistakes during hotel reservations with a hotel preview that’s shown right before users confirm the booking.
The hotel reservation is confirmed after the user makes payment, and then a booking confirmation message is sent to the user, ensuring the hotel is reserved for the desired date and time.
The accelerated payment process with mobile devices provides multiple in-app payment options to the users. It facilitates users to pay using credit/debit cards, payment gateways, mobile wallets, and other modes.
Offering a secure payment gateway is one of the most essential mobile app features for any business. You should mind it further that your hotel booking app payment should allow multiple APIs or third-party integrations such as PayPal, credit or debit card, net banking, or even e-wallets because today all such payments are used by almost all users.
Users can share their experiences while using app services about hotel stays, taxi services, and others that assist new users in making informed decisions.
Hotel owners can list their hotels and the related information such as room types, added amenities, photos, prices, and others. The data is dynamically updated due to changing room availability and price structure.
Owners can centrally access and manage incoming reservations to streamline check-in and check-out processes. The centralized management helps change pre-booked reservations, speeding up new reservations, and even canceling existing reservations.
This feature generates different reports for traffic, sales, revenue, and others that are analyzed to get valuable information from massive data. This data helps in making data-driven decisions and hotel management.
Hoteliers launch attractive promotional offers at different times of the year that help catch maximum eyes in the competitive market. From seasonal promotions to daily deals, it maximizes the number of bookings and user experience with hotel reservations.
App admin can view, access, and manage users’ accounts, ensuring accurate user data is stored. Users are granted special privileges based on their roles while ensuring data security and privacy policy.
View and manage the list of hotel owners along with their hotel profiles, wherein important information about the hotel is accessible.
Admin defines and modifies the payment options provided to the users for seamless payment. Also, access to every user transaction and transaction behavior provides insights into users’ behavior.
Determine a cancellation policy that enables users to cancel their bookings or reservations of hotel rooms during unexpected situations or unforeseen consequences. It lets the users reserve hotels with peace of mind.
To make your online hotel booking mobile app more prestigious and unique, you may think of adding some advanced features that would help you put your software platform at the top of the list in the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries.
With the help of Augmented Reality, you can add virtual tours of hotels, rooms, and even premises to give a fairer idea to users. The visitors or tourists are quite concerned about their stay away from home because they are mostly there for their leisure time. Showing 360-degree video tours and photographs would make your product stand out from the other online hotel booking apps in the market.
The fine dining experience is one of the reasons for staying at a good place for many tourists and visitors. While your product may offer an online hotel booking facility, you can go a step forward to offering restaurant and table reservations to show exclusivity to your guests. That way, they would get the table without any waiting even on busy days such as weekends.
Nowadays, users expect to get the taxi booked right through the hotel reservation app, ending up needing another taxi or transportation app. Enable taxi reservation service for users by entering pick-up and drop-off locations for the selected date. They also use this service to tour the location and go to places.
The latest features of online hotel booking apps may include providing ultimate support to users through chatbots and artificial intelligent assistants. Not only do such components help plan their trips, but also interact and solve their other problems related to hotel booking, sightseeing, and other transportation concerns. Virtual assistance can be made available 24/7 and hence you can cover almost all time zones around the globe; in other words, you do not miss even a single client/customer from any corner of the world.
Super apps rule today’s market, and you can make your hotel booking app a super hotel booking app by adding value through various third-party app integrations and company tie-ups. For instance, you can have a deal with sightseeing tour operators and include their software into your product to offer a seamless experience to your users. Furthermore, you can also include a few more advanced features to make your app a holistic place to find everything for visitors –
Such advanced options can add value, not only to your hotel booking app, but also the travel and tourism business.
It sets the epitome of a hybrid hotel booking app with its simplicity. A flexible filter system and detailed description of hotels are the two pillars that make the app successful in the hotel booking market. This application has significantly changed itself to a super app where lots of services are offered to users.
Booking.com focuses more on providing additional value to hotel booking. For instance, it provides all facilities including flight booking and other tour/travel associated services. Furthermore, within the app, the traveler and tourist can find sightseeing places along with transportation for the same.
Probably the most famous app for hotel booking, Airbnb includes all sorts of dwellings for vacation rentals a business trips to places for leisure activities. A perfect win-win situation for house/hotel owners and visitors makes this app the best.
This Airbnb agency app stays on the mind of spontaneous travelers due to instant booking and the significant savings it facilitates for last-minute bookings in the Americas, Europe, Japan, and Australia. The hoteliers try to get unsold rooms filled at discounted rates, so the app enables hotel booking till 2 A.M. The rooms are categorized based on their amenities and feel, which makes room selection more accessible, and reviews and photos allow booking faster. The daily drop feature is eye candy and helps users find personalized deals valid for only 15 minutes to book hotel rooms at a special price.
The travel app by Booking Holdings Inc. is the all-in-one solution to book a trip in the USA, Houston, or Los Angeles. Priceline allows users to find hotels, flights, and cars at the cheapest rates and secure them simultaneously. For hotel booking, users must provide location, dates, and room preferences to get a refined list of hotels. Later, users can save a lot of money for their next trip by applying specific filters and access to flash sales. With a single interface and three tabs for flight, hotel, and car booking, users don’t need to move back and forth for trip planning. Hence, get everything booked with a great experience.
Nothing is better than the Agoda app if you are looking for accommodation or flights worldwide at a 50% discount. The SHOP feature allows users to view special deals not even shown on the website. With over 2 million hotels registered on the app, users can book cheap hotels from last-minute to advance booking, followed by instant confirmation. The travel companion facilitates accessing reviews and photos that help make informed decisions.
Kayak is a reliable travel app by Booking Holdings Inc. that searches hundreds of travel sites simultaneously to find the best deals and provides a list of compare options. After comparison, users can book the hotels directly with the hotel website as Kayak directs users to the specific site. App-only deals and special mobile rates help users avail of discounted hotel bookings. The notifications are also sent to the users for the hotel price drop, which allows planning trips cost-effectively.
The go-to app provides access to last-minute unbeatable deals, enabling significant savings on hotel booking in advance or the next day. Additionally, the booking app facilitates deal negotiation on unsold rooms so that users can book a hotel at an extra discount. The Easy-to-use app allows navigating through customer reviews on the go, making the hotel selection and booking process smooth.
How to develop a hotel booking app? Now, before you jump into the bandwagon of the tours, travel, and hospitality industry, it is important that you have your homework done. Well begun is half done -this age-old adage goes true even for on-demand hotel booking app development. Here are the step-by-step processes for you to have a fair approach for both technology and business to make your app successful.
Whether you hire a firm or work yourself – market research about hotel booking apps and the current demand and industry requirements is a prerequisite for your digital product. You may take the help of online research such as Statista and other online hotel industry statistics portals to know more about the niche. Competition research is one of the top ways to analyze the market and user which can help to determine the success of your hotel booking app.
Depending on what type of mobile app for hotel booking you are making, you can segregate the marketplaces, targeted customers, or end users for your product. For instance, if you want to focus on tourist places, then the segmentation and strategies are completely different as compared to hotel booking for business trips.
To save money and time required for online hotel booking app development, the minimal viable product concept is the best approach. Defining the primary features and goals for your digital product would be minimal to start with.
Millions of dollars are spent by companies on UI/UX research. Hotel booking applications should have an appealing user interface yet easy navigation to provide the best user experience to visitors.
Whether you take the help of an online directory or search yourself, getting the best one from the list of renowned hotel booking app development companies for hotel booking makes utter sense in terms of long-term business deals and relations.
You can hire remote developers if you have small projects or changes that can be done in a short time.
In Details: How to select best mobile App Development Company?
Through market research and jotting down your business objectives, you are already on the verge of deciding on the technologies you require to build a hotel booking online app. You can always refer mobile app technology stack guide to learn more about it. Ranging from various cloud storage platforms such as AWS and Azure to mobile app platforms (iOS, Android, or cross-platform), and other backend and frontend software tools are to be decided before the project is kick-started.
Questions to help you select the right App Development Company
Depending on your project’s complexity and budget, the cost to develop a hotel booking app varies. You need to select the best hotel booking app development company that is affordable yet provides a quality product. Choose the best hiring model to get the value for each penny spent.
When the app development process starts, make sure that you get regular updates and that the milestones are released as per the timeline. Many offshore development companies provide a tool to their buyers where the latter can check the progress of their project and track the milestones live.
The entire project development cycle relies on a foolproof deployment on the app market or a particular system network and its maintenance to ensure that the product is up and running smoothly. For this, the front-end and back-end processes are expected to work flawlessly. Proper deployment and maintenance (after-sales support) of the hotel online booking app would promise that the app finds its permanent place on users’ mobile phones.
Using the right mix of front-end/back-end technologies, databases, third-party APIs, and others allows competitive hotel booking applications to be built. Go through the breakdown of the tech stack for a hotel booking platform that leading hoteliers have considered.
HTML, CSS, and JS form the foundation of intuitive front-end development. React, Angular and Vue are popularly leveraged front-end frameworks for dynamic, scalable, and excellent front-end development. They ensure everything from functionalities to performance works as expected by using Node.JS, RoR, Django, and PHP as back-end frameworks.
Two types of databases- relational and non-relational databases are used to store data securely. MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB are popular options for a database that seamlessly handles voluminous data. Apache, Nginx, and Express are web server technologies selected based on back-end language compatibility.
Third-party API integration ensures the best experience delivery with the addition of advanced features. Hotel price comparison API, hotel booking API, maps API, reviews, and rating API are considered for hotel booking app development in reduced time, cost, and effort.
A quick overview of the tech stack for online hotel booking app development
Platforms: Android, iOS, and Cross Platforms
Programming languages: Java, Python, Objective-C, Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, PHP, Nodejs, Vue, and Xamarin
UI design: HTML, CSS, JS, and Rest API
Database: MySQL, MongoDB, and MySQL
Web Servers: Apache, Nginx, and
Payment Gateways: Braintree, PayPal, Stripe, Google Pay, and E-wallets
Real-time Analytics: Hadoop, Spark, IBM, Big Data, and Apache
Maps: Google Maps API, Waze, and Apple map
Push notification: Twilio and Push.io
Hotel metasearch data: HotelsCombined Data Feeds and Skyscanner Affiliate API
Aggregator APIs: Expedia Affiliate Network API
Depending on various factors, the hotel booking app development costs range between $20,000 to $100,000. The hotel app’s complexity, number of features, OS selection (Android or iOS, or both), development approach (native or cross-platform), tech stack, developers’ location, design comprehensiveness, and others impact the cost of building a hotel booking app.
MVP development takes time of around 2-3 months and costs approximately between $5,000-$20,000. On the contrary, hotel app development with optimal features for mid-sized hotels costs at least $25,000 and takes around six months to complete. The cost of MVP, mid-sized apps, and full-featured app development also vary according to the developer’s location. For example, US developers charge $100-$200 per hour, the hourly rate of Eastern Europe developers is $80-$150, and Asia-Pacific developers charge as low as $25 per hour. When US developers are selected, the cost will go Northwards, and Asian developer selection diminishes the cost estimate.
The number and complexity of applications’ functions and features remain the core of total app cost. Also, the development company’s region plays a crucial role in defining your budget. Nevertheless, the cost of hotel app development starts at $10000 and can go up to $100000.
Businesses such as startups and enterprises invest time, money, and effort in hotel booking app conceptualization, planning, and development, which they expect to pay off. It’s possible by integrating suitable monetization models during app development for hotel booking, which helps businesses earn at a later stage. Take a quick look at the successful monetization strategies.
Initially, app owners invite hoteliers to register and start getting hotel bookings at lower commission rates on every transaction that occurs through the platform. After that, as the hotel app gains popularity, it gradually increases the commission that hoteliers readily pay to maximize bookings.
Hotel booking app owners can give special privileges such as getting listed in the premium listing for free to the hoteliers who joined the platform earlier. This premium listing improves the popularity of hotels that drive more bookings, which makes hoteliers stay on the platform.
Entrepreneurs take a different move with a few tweaks in the subscription model, wherein the basic version of the hotel booking app is free. The hoteliers want to attract more customers with advanced features such as marketing tools, analytics tools, and more facilitated under premium subscriptions.
In-app advertising is a commonly used revenue model. But it drives revenue at scale when entrepreneurs partner with travel-related services, such as local tour operators or travel gear for in-app advertising. The related ads never interfere with the user’s booking experience. Hence, app owners earn continuously while keeping users happy.
Wanderlusts follow travel bloggers primarily, and when travel bloggers are chosen for affiliate marketing, the results are spectacular. Startups and entrepreneurs can collaborate with travel bloggers and influencers for affiliate marketing, increasing app visibility among their fan following. More hoteliers will likely register on the platform to avail of the massive user base, which ultimately increases ROI.
The corporate sector requires employees to travel frequently, and hotel booking for business travel is quite a task. When app owners partner with corporations and offer special packages catering to business travelers, it increases booking through the platform and, thus, revenue through bookings.
Hotel booking apps vying for users’ attention during holidays or significant events. When hotel booking app owners utilize dynamic pricing or special promotions during peak travel seasons or events, it drives traffic and improves hotel bookings. This translates into uplifted revenue.
Hoteliers want to deliver a personalized experience that turns users into potential customers. It requires digging deeper into user behavior and gaining rich insights about their likings and preferences. Entrepreneurs can monetize this opportunity by offering reporting and analytics features for a fee, helping hoteliers better understand customers. It’s a win-win idea for both- app owners and hoteliers.
Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful weapon to spread the word about the app for free. A loyalty program is the best way to reward frequent users, making existing customers talk about the app socially and on different channels. It encourages repeat business and spreads the good word about the hotel booking app, which is healthy.
So, are you ready to take up the challenge of building an online hotel booking app? Do you want to establish a groundbreaking online hotel booking business such as Airbnb or Hotels.com? Look no further and start searching for the best service provider. If you need any help with finding the best service provider to develop your hotel booking app, send your project requirements and we can help you find and hire the best developers based on your business requirements.
The hotel booking app follows simple steps such as
Depending on various parameters, hotel booking app development costs range between $25,000 and $100,000.
Hotel booking apps can stand out in the competitive marketplace by creating their distinctive niche with USPs, such as ensuring hotel stays at the lowest price, unlocking the best last-minute deal, providing user-friendliness, and others. It makes users consider your app, especially when looking for discounted bookings or last-minute deals.
The hotel booking app has a bright future ahead as there are multitudes of opportunities to scale and upgrade the application. Keep adding new features to interact with new features and provide offers to the current ones to retain them.
When a hotel booking app is built using a scalable technology stack, adding more features to the app is feasible. It makes the app align with business growth needs.
Initially, businesses start earning money using commission-based (A certain percentage of the amount from every transaction), subscription-based (Hoteliers use the platform to get mobile bookings), promotion-based (Launch offers to increase bookings and thus revenue), and in-app advertising (Allow third-party business to advertise and earn on for every CPI, CTR, and other) models. When the platform starts gaining popularity, affiliate marketing, B2B partnerships for business travelers, and rich insights for hotels are considered to drive more revenue to the startups.
Nowadays hoteliers are joining the platform and customers booking the hotels are tech-savvy, which requires the app interface to be easy to navigate. User-friendly UI design ensures target users understand how to navigate the app, access functionalities, and book hotel rooms at optimal discounts.
Some legal considerations for hotel booking apps are:
You may follow a hotel booking app development guide that includes various steps to follow. Find the best mobile app developers and hire the best resources to build the product.
Certainly, A customized hotel booking mobile app allows you to include all the features you want in your product. You may need to define the same scope in your documentation before approaching service providers.
Hotel booking apps are of many types and there are many revenue or business models that can be implemented. While hoteliers can get guests from all across the regions, the users would be benefited by having all services and bookings on their smartphones.
Largely depending on the hotel booking app feature complexities and size, the cost to develop a hotel booking app may vary from USD 10000 to USD 500000. The accurate price or budget estimation can only be calculated by service providers.
An enthusiastic Operations Manager at TopDevelopers.co, coordinating and managing the technical and functional areas. She is an adventure lover, passionate traveler, an admirer of nature, who believes that a cup of coffee is the prime source to feel rejuvenated. Researching and writing about technology keeps her boosted and enhances her professional journeying.