Travel app development - give new heights to your tourism business

By 2018, the gap between being mobile is predicted to grow to people spending three hours and 20 minutes using the net on their phone, compared to just 40 minutes on the computer. Gone are the days where people used to sit for hours on their desktop or laptops to plan their trip. Mobile app development has made this process easy and handy. Now the audience are moving towards the usage of travel app to plan anything related to their trip.

You need to book tickets for your bus, it’s just a tap away. You need a room booking in a hotel, this also is just a tap away. With travel app development, the users can leverage numerous features from booking a cab, bus, train to hotel rooms and tourist attractions.

Tourism industry has dramatically changed over the past few years. More people have started travelling not only into the natives but also across countries. Travel industry has spread its wings, economically dominating most industries. With this growth and popularity, there arises a need of non-speculative solution to sustain the competition.

Why will travel app development see a paradigm shift?

9 out of 10 travellers prefer travel app than a traditional way of booking and travelling.

The travellers would always need to visit the travel agent’s website to refer to the itinerary or for booking. And if the website isn’t mobile friendly, people might also be restrained from using those.  They would not have their laptop handy all the time. Travel app development proves to be the best solution in this case.

People are now engaged in their mobile apps more than 50% of the time. Henceforth, mobile application for tourism will prove to be an efficient solution that you can offer as a tour operator. Unlike travel websites, travel app is a one-pack-solution where the user can it easily use whenever required. Travel app development will foster the needs of your customers whenever needed.

Customer engagement and customer satisfaction are the foremost strategies to look upon as a solution to pertain a market where competition is flooding. Mobile app development would be an affordable and reliable solution to look at. A growing urge to not only remain in the market but also to provide best of the facilities to the customers will be the reason a travel company will opt for travel app development.

How a simple mobile app can be fruitful to a travel business?

MICE segment tourists or the business travellers are the ones to get the maximum benefit out of the travel app development. These travellers frequently rely on mobile app from booking of air/train tickets to hotel booking. A travel agency can foster the requirements of a wider audience depending on the features that they provide them via their Android or iPhone mobile app.

There are many features that a travel agency can impart to its customers to give them a blended experience of travelling.

Ticket booking: Travel app provide an anytime, anywhere service providing all the necessary solutions. Ticket booking being the major requirement, a convenient way of offering this service would be favorable for the tour operators. Air, land and sea, ticket booking for all these mediums under one shade is something a traveller would love to see in a travel app.

Customized packages: Offering holiday packages along with itinerary is a great way to show your audience your customized solutions. Customization is a factor that the customers look for while travelling. Putting their needs and requirements first through the travel app would be something they might be inclining to.

Payment gateway integration: By providing a secure payment gateway, a travel agency can gain the trust of the users. Integrated secure payment mode and a refund option proves to be an extensive strategy to utilize for your mobile app.

Car rental within the app: When everything is provided under one shade, what else can an individual be looking for? An option to book a ride with the car service providers within the mobile application would help the person while traveling through different places. Whether the traveler wants to go to a hotel from the airport, or to the holiday destination, if the travel app incorporates a cab service in its features that would be a bonus for the travelers.

Geolocation based services: Once the tourist reaches the destination, the first thing a tourist wants is to check out a hotel, cafe or a nearby local attraction. Inculcating GPS or geolocation solutions to your travel app development, can make your customers use your app more efficiently and frequently.

Furthermore, offering digital payments, mobile room entry, online flight check-in are other ethical benefits for travel app development proves to be your ultimate way towards customer retention.

Redbus.in - a startup, popular for its travel app

Redbus.in is an Indian startup which was acquired by Ibibo group in June 2013. This is a popular app that allows the users to book tickets without much hassle.The business also owns BOGDS, a cloud computing service for bus operators, and SeatSeller, a GDS for bus inventory distribution.

It has been very popular among Indian travellers for booking buses for their road journey.

What to do if you are in need of travel app development?

A business will always look for affordable solutions. But with affordability, reliability and assurance are some of the major factors that should be accountable.

LetsNurture is a leading IT service provider with a vintage experience in the field of mobile app development. If you are a travel operator or into tourism industry looking for travel app development, you are on the right page. We have an in-house team of talented developers to guide you through your requirements.

Get a free quote from us or feel free to write to us

Sports Industry going Mobile

The industry in the sports are confined with the large number of people having bonds with the sports teams, business professionals in the sports and fans. In this age of mobile tech these communities are going mobile. The people, clubs and even teams are spending most of the time in mobile. This has led to more and more apps developed and the idea behind this development has connected the fans and teams together because sports is a fascination for all fans around.

How Sports apps are popular:

1. Leverages team Spirit

Mobile apps helps the fans to stay connected even if there is no big game. This keeps the team spirit.

2. Score and Notifications alerts

Sports fans are eager for the updates on scores and desperate to get news who will win. Sports apps keeps the fan updated with constant alerts and notifications about the happening game. Moreover, information like score, number of goals and highlights are easily kept in the card formats and are received as notifications.

3. Prospective Tailored Content

Sports fan would like to know everything about the sports. Imagine if someone is filtering through all on-going games in real-time and notifying you about your favourite team, so possibly with the help of app you can catch the action.

Popular Apps out there

If you really want to develop mobile app for any professional team, you need to spy out the similar apps. Digging more deep into US market, we’ll come to know that NHL, NBA and MLB have already made investment in the mobile apps - but not every team has the same.  Approximately, 16 out of 30 NBA teams has application that is almost 53.3%.

Going through the most popular app to know better what the fans are really expecting for the mobile app for their team. There are two major type of apps we look at: dedicated apps for certain team or club or aggregators that gives information about multiple teams to keep fans connected.

1. Dedicated Apps

Dedicated Apps are basically a big team or clubs. You can take an example of FC Barcelona app. The app supports three different languages that becomes easy to use. Moreover, it offers the personalized content for any sport you wish to follow.

You can also have a look how different elements of a multi-billion dollar industry can be combined together to provide a platform for fans with the complete fulfilling experience.
Furthermore to add it has synchronization with the R@dio Barça, that allows you to listen live on your smart device in any of the three language. Users can also set real-time alerts for goals and announcements of the final score.

2. Aggregator Apps

Aggregators provide information about different teams or fan clubs. Moreover it also schedules different tournaments and games, all within one application. You can take an example of ESPN app that offers global sports news and keeps the fan connected with latest news, scores and updates. It also allows fans to customize a list of their favourite players or teams and follow news about all the athletes they care about.Other than, ESPN there are also different similar apps like Score, NCAA Sports App etc.

Reasons to develop Sports App

After having the look at why sports industry is going popular in mobile and why fans love them, we can spot out some reasons why a sports team or club needs a mobile app.

To build overwhelming environment where sports fans can get connected with each other with their favourite team players.

• To build an ecommerce platform for the sales of the branded goods and other promotional goods. 
• A platform where fans can book, buy and sell tickets to matches and team related events.
• To create controversial platform where fan can meet and talk about their favorite teams.
• Your app can be developed with any of these reasons. Moreover you can come up with your own idea as well. The sports app helps to build a tight community and can prove helpful to the team by monetizing their brand.

We would love to have your thoughts on the above article and would be pleased to assist you. Get in touch with us with any of these requirements.

Priceline, Expedia and OTA emerging in the Online Travel Market

Travel industries has become one of the most competitive. And now a days everyone enjoys accessing large number of options to book trips and accommodations. Mobile apps for flight and hotel booking have become major concern for the traditional travel agents for a while now.

Alike Airbnb, online bookings are increasing through websites and mobile apps. Even, airlines, hotel chains and car rental brands have been developing their own websites and apps. For boosting their brand, loyalty programs are conducted where they try to convince customers that have no reason to use OTA search engine to find the best deal.

This becomes obvious for the travel agencies difficult to survive! Having website is not the solution. Expedia, Booking.com, Priceline and many others are the rising competitors and launching a new travel app means to go against them. To stay in this fierce competition, travel agencies must be something different.

Let’s have a look how popular travel brands operate and provide recommendations for the agents who wants to navigate into online world.

Source inventory of Expedia and Priceline

Companies like Expedia and Priceline source their inventory by negotiating directly with the hotels and using GDS (global distribution systems) to book hotel reservations, cruises, air tickets, car rentals, different attractions and services. GDS systems is expensive to access, and so travel agencies generally do not prefer inventory if they can avoid. 

How do online travel agencies make money?

Online travel agencies uses these business models, to monetize their products.

Agency business model: OTA acts as a middleman between industry operators and customers, making commission on each transaction. Expedia's rates for commission ranges from 20 to 25%. 

Merchant business model: In this model, OTA is the merchant. Bookings are done on the company's own website or mobile app. To use this model, online agency buys large number of hotels at wholesale rates and then markets rooms to travellers according to the agency's rate. Priceline sells hotel reservations according to this model, whereas Expedia totally relies on the merchant model, that offers higher margins.

Advertising business model: Priceline earns 0.3% of its revenue from advertising fees. Moreover, TripAdvisor is driven by advertising. For small travel agents seeking for travel apps or websites, advertising model is the most affordable. Alternatively, you can even use the existing infrastructure to build new services and earn money along with them. Many travel agencies make money on flights and hotels charging cost-per-click to OTA and supplier websites.

Differentiate your Product offerings

1. Go Mobile

Recent survey by Euromonitor International stated that, the travel industry will have highest percentage of mobile bookings of any retail industry by 2020. Since then, the market for travel apps will as competitive as for the web, it can be recommended to initiate your application with by targeting your existing customers. Your travel app can greatly increase your customer loyalty.

2.  Get into new and niche Markets

Rather than targeting undeserved geographical area, travel agencies that do not wish to be endangered species can differentiate by catering the niche market. Some of the areas where agents are still succeeding included luxury and business niche where travellers value personal relationships and expertise over cost savings.

Moreover, you can also choose a niche to target based on interests like adventure, spirituality, history, extreme sports etc. You can also select based on demographics, special events as in olympics, rock concerts, festivals or even you can choose themes like camping, city breaks, wellness, family or luxury. 

3. Technology to improvise Customer service

Expedia and Priceline care to the mass market, that consists of young people and are used to get instant information on the web and booking trips on their own. 

If you are start up, that audience you attract is not same as the one like Expedia target. While online travel agencies have wide range of options, they do not offer customer services that is actually expected. Customer service is what traditional agencies are so good at!

Traditional agents search for flights and accommodations for their customers. Moreover, a traditional agency plans the entire trip without any awareness of their client. And if there are any concerns during or after the trip, travel agents are always ready to help. These advantages can be improved with the help of technology. And the agents who embrace technology to improve the client experience, it is obvious for their survival.  

If you want to know more about your travel app, feel free to contact us!

iOS 10 ready to bring changes for iPhone App Development

Apple iOS - the biggest update for iPhone application development was announced at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco on 13 June 2016. Before its inception on 13th September, Apple went on to roll out the series of beta versions of iOS 10. It was offered free to the owners of iPhone 5 and later, iPad mini 2 and later, and the iPad 4, iPad Air and iPad Pro models. And currently, the company is providing more control to iPhone and iPad owners over the software with iOS 10.

Yes, that was the big one. With the arrival of latest update in OS from Apple adjoins two newer OS - tvOS 20 and WatchOS 3. Before iOS 10 was launched, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus was triggered in the iPhone industry. Since Apple is interested in quick advancement, it has leverages its iOS frameworks and other services to be modified. These updations has allowed the developers to develop large scale of iPhone based products that made its compatibility with other Apple family products.

Apple iOS 10 is designed for the holders of iPhone 5 and later devices. Users can manually trigger the update by following settings -> General -> Software Update. The size of the update varies as per the device, but the iOS 10 has the size in between 600 MB to 1.2 GB.

Devices supporting iOS 10

• iPhone – 5, 5s, 5c, 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, iPhone SE
• Ipad - iPad mini, mini 2, mini 3, mini 4, iPad 2, 3rd gen, 4th gen, Air, Air 2, Pro 12.9-inch, Pro 9.7-inch 
• Ipod touch 6th generation.

How iOS 10 updates can help you with the development application?

The updated features of iOS 10 that includes facial recognition, typing with Siri, Siri SDK to integrate into the applications, responsive push notifications and 3d response and much more, has made a great impact for the iPhone app development.

These upgraded features contribute greatly to the development of the exceptional iOS applications. iPhone app developers must understand the updates and examine in the way adopted to integrate in your iPhone application development.

As far as notifications update is concerned for iOS 10 then, you should consider some points like you need to enable actions like answering to the missed calls, postponing the invitation etc., creating customized notification sound, leveraging the delete option that helps the user to delete unavoidable events or even pop-ups.

As far as speech recognition is concerned, you can consider internet connectivity to be mandatory, no access to personal data and information like passwords, personal data, credit card securities etc.

A collection of different features are available to the iPhone application. Even voicemail transcription can help you with spammers. This could open the new opportunity for choosing the default apps for maps, email, music and much more. It was actually a great surprise announced by WWDC 2016, still there are lot many things in waiting this year for your business application development.

Final Verdict

Updating your smartphone device to the new OS is advised because of the benefits it comes with.  The new operating system consumes less space and also advances the battery life having features of battery saving. iOS 10 is the biggest move taken by the Apple.

If you have any idea or you are in need to develop your business application that is compatible with iOS 10, then we are you all set to help you. Hire best iOS app developers of LetsNurture and develop best business app for your enterprise. Contact us for details.