Hands down, the arrival of the mobile app has made a revolutionary transformation in the hospitality industry. People can now book hotels, flights, cabs, restaurants, and so on in a few swipes through a mobile app.
With more people traveling for work and recreation purposes, modern businesses today focus on building exclusive hospitality apps like travel, tourism, and hotel apps to entertain them. Yes, with the increased use of smartphones, it is worth investing in hotel app development.
The hotel industry is booming worldwide, addressing and accommodating the varied needs of guests across the globe. Actually, as many think, the hotel industry is not only about hotels. But, it also includes other forms of accommodation like motels, hostels, inns, and guest houses.
So, are you a budding entrepreneur looking forward to building your own niche marketplace for online hotel reservations? Or, are you running an established hotel and you want to create an app separately for your business offering multiple functionalities other than booking? Or, are you an upcoming hotel business owner wanting to improve your brand awareness and generate some extra income?
Welcome to the amazing world of the hospitality industry!! With skyrocketing travelers and globe trotters, hotel apps are an excellent investment that can generate high ROIs.
3 Hotel App Development Ideas to earn Money
Now, we are here with 3 hotel app development ideas for you to make money in 2021.
Hotel Booking Aggregators:
It is one of the most familiar forms of mobile apps in the hospitality industry. If you are starting anew in the hospitality industry, you can go for such an app. It enables people to reserve hotel rooms through the app.The idea behind booking apps is pretty straightforward. The app is connected with numerous online booking services. When travelers look for a room to stay in, they get a list of hotel options with price ranges from various online booking services.
Travelers can pick the most suitable one matching their needs. Upon selection, they can access the respective booking platform. Booking.com, launched in the 90s is one of the pioneers in the travel industry, available in various languages. You can refer to Booking.com if you want to start a business in the hotel industry.
Hotel Booking App for Established Hotels:
If you run a well-established hotel that has its chain across the country or the world, you can go for exclusive app development for your hotel. For instance, giants like Hilton, Marriot have their apps offering varied services other than just hotel rooms.
Of course, this idea of developing an exclusive app for your hotel is feasible only if you run a chain of hotels. Plus, if you have unique hotel industry-related ideas that you believe will bring profits, you can go ahead and create your own app.
In general, established hotel businesses have mobile apps for hotels that offer multiple functionalities apart from booking. For instance, their apps will allow guests to make various special requests like food orders, salon services, spa, jacuzzi, and so on during their stay in their hotels.
Hotel Booking App with Hybrid Approach:
Creating a booking app for your hotel leveraging a hybrid method is a promising tactic for a successful hotel business. Hybrid apps can run in numerous operating systems like iOS, Android, and Windows.
As hybrid apps run on a wide range of devices, you can target a larger market. That, in turn, increases your profit margin. You can make use of multiple mobile monetization methods favorable on iOS, while other strategies are effective on Android. Hence, you can target both users with a hybrid app by offering various monetization approaches suitable for your app.
Hybrid apps are most suitable for offering reservation services. You can allow travelers to book online services and provide additional offers for their reservations. In fact, online reservation for hotel app development is the best solution for entrepreneurs who have their own space for rental purposes.
Yes, on one side, you are attracting new travelers contributing to your additional source of income. On the flip side, you can promote your app by offering various deals and discounts for your hotels.
Now, after knowing about various hotel app ideas, it is vital to explore how to generate revenue from these apps.
Business Models for Hotel Booking Mobile Apps:
Any business thrives on its ability to make consistent income. Hotel apps are a promising way to make money. Here are some ways to generate revenue from hotel booking apps?
Advertisements & Promotions:
Advertisements are one of the most sensible and popular ways to generate money through mobile apps. You can display relevant ads that will benefit your audience. Obviously, people search for hotels when they are away from home and on vacation or probably in a new city.
Hence, most of the time, they don’t really know about the place, where to go, eat and have fun in that new city. Displaying ads regarding the local spots, nearby attractions, events, restaurants can enable the audience to make the most of the place/trip. However, the main purpose of the app is to book hotels. So, make sure you don’t overdo the ads and interrupt users while booking hotels.
Earn Through Commissions:
A commission-based business model is a well-known and proven method to make money from mobile apps. You can charge a fee for every guest who books hotel rooms through your app. Plus, you can also charge a fee from various hotel owners who want to display their hotels in your app. Hence, as an app owner, you can earn significant money by charging commissions from both guests and hoteliers.
Subscription-Based Business Model:
A subscription-based business model is a commonly used tactic to make money through mobile apps. In general, the model works by asking the users to pay every month to enjoy benefits like accessing specific features or removing ads, and so on. If users find the app useful, they will automatically renew the subscription every month. That way, app owners can generate consistent income through their apps.
App As a Platform:
In this business model, app owners don’t really charge any fee from either party, say hoteliers or customers. Instead, the app merely acts as a platform connecting hotel owners and customers. Revenue generation, in general, happens by charging hotels when they want to place their offer in the listing or for accessing some extra features like permission to post more pictures or be at the top of the list for a fixed time.
Make Money through Paid Downloads:
Unless your app has the most beneficial features that will add value to the users, people rarely pay for downloading the app. Of course, people will trust and will be reluctant to spend money on any new apps. However, once you are established in the market as a well-known app offering cool features and exciting deals, people will start downloading your app to enjoy all those benefits. Still, paid app download is one of the least successful business models, as spending money on new apps scares people off. Moreover, when many mobile apps are free to download, who will pay for downloading the app?
Benefits of Developing Hotel Apps:
Both app owners and users can enjoy their fair share of benefits from hotel apps. Here are some of the benefits listed below:
For App Owners:
Increased brand awareness.
Encourage users to find the most suitable hotel/lodging services.
Offer an Easy booking facility.
Provide a platform to find reliable data and insights.
Engage employees in other crucial tasks as the app can take care of most tasks.
Strengthen brand loyalty.
For Guests:
- Guests can book rooms any time and from anywhere.
- They have access to a reliable platform listing standard hotels.
- Guests can filter hotels by city, country, date, and number of guests.
- Guests can get directions with a geolocation facility.
- They can read reviews and ratings from old customers.
- Quick login via social media handles like Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail.
- Guests can receive detailed descriptions and photos of the selected place or city.
Final Thoughts:
Owning apps in the hotel industry is a big business that has immense potential to generate excellent revenue. With digital platforms, many travel bloggers and travel enthusiasts are constantly posting travel-related content across the web. Thus, more people are aware of exploring various places and showing interest in world travel more than ever. Plus, people travel for their jobs more than ever. All such factors contribute to the increasing need for hotel rooms in several places.
Nevertheless, mobile apps have made traveling and trip planning a lot easier. With travel and hotel apps, the hospitality industry has seen tremendous revenue. So, are you one of those aspiring business enthusiasts waiting to step into the hotel industry with an outstanding hotel app?
All you need is to find a reliable mobile app development company that has extensive experience in hotel app development. Cypherox Technologies is an established mobile app development company known for its high quality, appealing, and responsive mobile apps in the hotel industry. Reach us now to turn your hotel app development idea into reality.
