Increasing Usability of Booking App Soon to Become Mainstream

Let alone naïve users, experienced users are accustomed to doing loads more with their mobile applications regarding them as the collective “go-to” for everything necessary to enjoy the daily routine with everything organized and optimized with a few clicks. This results in consumers’ deeper engagement “in-app” at precisely the same time that more marketers are looking beyond the download and the installation of the app.

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A Bit of Research on Booking App Market

It’s a dynamic that pushed down the cost to acquire users who will convert the chances of many app categories – booking app to top the list! According to the mobile app, trends report 2019 by Liftoff, the global app economy is projected towards an incredible $156 billion by 2023. Mobile apps will continue to grow towards the dominance of the advertising industry. Applications that enable users to book a Dinner, Flight, Hotel, Tutor, Salon or cab pooling/booking service benefit from low acquisition costs and high engagement. Drawing from the internal data global e-commerce rose from 20.7% to $3.535 trillion. Global e-commerce will approach $5 trillion by the end of 2021.

The Main Purpose of an Online Booking System

A booking app is used to manage the reservation process of a Cap/Taxi/Flight/Hotel Room/Restaurant Table etc. Such applications allow tour and activity operators to accept bookings online and in managing their phone and in-person bookings in a much better way.

Major Benefits of Online Booking App:

• To increase overall bookings
• To save a lot of time
• To increase the efficiency of the operations
• To get smarted insights into the business
• Zero investment in training of the users of this application as the entire application is browser-based
• This decreases the overall order processing cost.
• Interacting with customers becomes easy and economical.
• User statistics reports can be used for effectual utilization of the products and services.
• Easy reservation/booking of hotels, caps, tables and other on-demand services.
• Booking apps provide a platform for entire reservation activities with a single login
• The cancellation of booking is easy within the stipulated time.
• Booking apps are an extension of business providing greater exposure resulting in increased revenue.
• It is easy to access and maintain data in real-time.
• Making use of geo-targeting to trigger booking reminders
• Easy booking with a streamlined booking form
• Offers loyalty points for in-app bookings
• Regular Push notifications to encourage future bookings

Major disadvantages of the online booking system:

• It takes a lot of time to get and set up
• Staff needs to be trained.

Typical User Complaints with Booking Apps

• Cancellation of booking
• A Bug within the app
• Complaints with the deals and offers (seasonal or personalized)
• Review visualization (Fake or Real)

Highlighting the Feedback and Considerations from Users

• Users compare and conclude about the average prices of the booking platforms
• It is difficult to find negative feedback about the properties (in case of hotel booking apps). The system is structured to highlight positive feedback.
• It is very difficult to approach the host and get responses from them.

Users often feel that the booking app looks old as compared to prevalent platforms and almost everything looks like a deal. It always seems that the host is trying to sell off something.

Types of Booking Apps

Booking apps can be divided into two categories:

On-demand Booking Applications

Such applications are fast and provide services that can satisfy customers’ needs in no time. A user has options to choose from a good or a service, order it, track its delivery and receive it.

Industries that particularly get benefitted from the on-demand economy are:

• Taxi-booking service: Lyft, Uber, Ola, etc.
• Dedicated Delivery Services: Landtran, 24-7 Couriers, ADS
• Home services: Sears, TaskRabbit, Mr. Appliance, Serviz, Handy, Plumbal, Homee on Demand
• Laundry Services: Cleanly, FlyCleaners, Rinse

In-advance Booking Applications

Such applications let users schedule appointments by making use of the calendars.

Industries that particularly get benefitted from In-advance economy are:

• Hospitality Services
• Food and beverages/Restaurant booking: Yelp, Uber Eats, Starbucks, DoorDash, Deliveroo, etc.
• Travel & tourism: TripIt, FlightStats, Skyscanner, Maven, etc.
• Hotels: Booking.com, Hotels.com, HotelTonight, Tripadvisor
• Events and entertainment: Sailing Collective, Boatsetter, Oyeplay, Eventbrite, Appy Couple, Cvent
• Beauty Services: Treatwell, Missbeez, Stylisted, beGlammed, StyleSeat
• Doctor’s Offices: Zocdoc, Figure1, Practo
• Flight Booking Service: Skyscanner
• Appointment Booking: Square

Basic Features for a Booking App

• Sign up/Sign In – of a personalized profile
• User Dashboard – Offers and Deals as per Artificial intelligence
• Search Widget – according to the Geo-location, radius, and number of travelers
• Hotel/Cab List – with de-duplication, reviews and ratings, maps, photos, amenities, and some more
• Booking Availability – confirmation, the policy of hotels, Cancellation.
• Secure Payment – on the Booking Website/Mobile apps
• Notifications – on registered email and mobile number as a reminder of booking with all details.

More Features for Online Booking Websites

Adequate tools and techniques make it easy to create a booking website or an app in hours. Some tweaks and timely changes into the website or app can change the response. Here are some of the quick features which will certainly give great results:

• Easy search (Search box with indexed and keyword search)
• Intuitive navigation
• Proper categorization
• Responsive and cross-browser compatibility
• Availability Calendar
• Complete Verified Details
• Relevant Images of the bookable product or service
• Facility to cancel service and clear refund rates/terms.
• Call Support
• Easy to use, easy to pay
• A calendar
• Multiple payment options
• Discount & Gift Vouchers
• Real-time booking
• Email automation
• Channel management
• Third-party integration
• Reporting options
• Reservation facility
• User-friendly interface
• Travel Arrangements
• Comprehensive Payment system
• Offline booking capability
• Multi-linguistic and multi-currency support
• Management of Room facilities
• Handy Search engine
• Weather updates
• Integrated third-party map service
• Image Gallery
• Discounts and deals
• Multi-booking system
• Social Media sharing
• Online Chat
• Straightforward calls-to-action on the app main screens
• Flexible, personalized, and effective search engine
• The simple and transparent payment process
• Inspirational visual content
• Informative push notifications
• Mobile boarding passes in airline apps
• Secure checkout process
• Event Venue/Hotel/Cab comparisons
• Cab/Accommodation search
• Hotel/Cab Reviews
• Filters by price
• Book a last-minute trip or far in advance
• Search hotels by city, attraction, landmark, or hotel name with just one tap
• Last Minute Booking Cancellation
• Get paperless confirmation
• Make changes whenever, wherever
• Accepting multiple currencies
• 24/7 customer service in more than one language
• Contact your host, view check-in times, and write reviews
• Omitting booking or credit card fees

Additional Points to Be Considered While Creating a Booking App

An app that is designed and created with users in mind always uplifts the industry.

• The visual content, the way the search results will be displayed, sorting and filtering of results, any other parameter that might affect the conversion – might be alpha/beta test first.

• The most popular app pages must be prioritized – There must be a focus on improving the pages that require most users’ attention.

• Implementing all security payment methods – payment time-outs, complex passwords, two-factor authentication.

• Integrating mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Google Pay, etc.

• It is important to incorporate explicit feedback functionality on the app to collect detailed information from users that want to share their ideas.

• Adding push notifications to update the trip status, flag the flight price changes, suggest discounts and offers, post additional reminders about booking in progress, etc.

Business Models Followed by Booking App Development Services

Three predominant business models that propagate Online Travel Agencies (OTA’s)/Online Booking App Development Services are:

• Advertising Business Model: Followed by apps like TripAdvisor

• Agency Business Model (based on commissions): Followed by websites like Booking.com, Airbnb, Hostelworld, Kayak, and Agoda, etc.

• Merchant Business Model: Followed by apps like Expedia.

All these three are demand-aggregation platforms and have excellent prospects in highly fragmented industries. All these business models can help compare, meta-search and in-demand aggregation of the business site in general.

How to Make a Booking App?

Stepwise:

1. Hotel Search – Initiate search, get status, get results
2. Cab/Room List – Initiate search, get status, get results
3. Get pricing – Get price
4. Do the booking – Initiate booking, get status
5. Cancellation – Initiate cancellation, get results

Technologies Stack for Booking Portal App Development

• Frontend: Swift, Objective-C, angularJS, Flutter, CSS3 and beyond, ReactJS, etc.
• Backend: PHP (Latest version), Python, Node.js, .NetCore, Postgress etc.
• Database: MySQL, MongoDB etc.
• Scripting Language: JavaScript, HTML/CSS
• Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, Flask, Django, Ember, Backbone, or Angular
• Server Providers: Apache, Nginx, etc.
• Libraries: jQuery, React.js, Zepto.js

Konstant provides seamless integration of API of all the suppliers and their inventory to be displayed on the website. Few suppliers that we often use in creating booking portal:

(Subject to change as per requirements and availability).

Cost to Make Hotel Booking App like Booking.com

A normal booking application (web, android or iOS will consist of two dashboards: one for the customer and the other one for the hoteliers. The cost of developing a booking app depends upon the features in the app, technology stack, budget and time constraints, geographical location of the development team.

• Customer dashboard features Signup, Personal profiles, User dashboard, Search system, Geolocation function and maps integration, Ratings and reviews, Notifications.

• Taxi/Hoteliers/Event dashboard features: Property management/Vehicle management, Fleet management, Booking management, and notifications.

• Additional Features: Searching through the app, front-end submissions, low tariffs, instant confirmations, securing the order, calculating the order fee, support 24*7

Examples of Some of the Booking Apps We Have Developed

• SPACEIT PLUS – Events Venue Booking Marketplace Website
• Taximo – On-Demand Taxi Booking App (Android)
• Jam Spot – An Android app for booking the best, biggest and fully equipped rehearsal rooms in the UK! (Android)
• HOTBYM – A website for hotel booking that provides hourly bookings. (Web)
• ZULO – A platform that makes your life easier giving the flexibility to book different sized vehicles to transport your goods at the tip of your fingers. (Android)

Examples of Best Reservation Software 2020

• Trivago Hotel Booking PWA
• Pinterest PWA
• Tinder PWA
• 9Gag PWA
• OLX PWA
• Starbucks Coffee PWA
• Forbes PWA
• Booking.com
• HotelsCombined.com
• Agoda.com
• TripAdvisor
• Hotels.com
• Priceline
• HostelWorld
• Trivago
• Hotwire
• HotelTonight

Why is a mobile booking app worth?

It is important to consider the initial investment in terms of both time, money and efforts involved in converting an idea into a feasible project, setting up the business that can bring potential benefits to the company. Mobile applications make it easy to book a cab, book a hotel or register a venue for your event with just a click. On-demand booking apps give the most needed convenience, thus offering win-win solutions for businesses and customers. Filling the knowledge, communication, design, standards, and performance gap – Konstant is prompt to deliver on their service standards, managing service designs, processes, and systems. Enquire about last-minute hotel booking apps and likewise here!