The human mind has always been curious about things surrounding it. The urge to explore the vastness of the earth has always been an inherent instinct to mankind and the way our civilization has shaped up today has all been due to the voyages and expeditions that have been happening over centuries and millenniums.
With every conquest and voyage, something new has always been brought into the newer land – something exquisite, something unknown. And this basic need to travel is still in our minds today though we’re plagued with conditions in the form of jobs, finance and more.
However, thanks to the evolution of technology, we are slowly getting back to traveling. Technology has influenced the travel and tourism sector in numerous ways but three influences stand out from the rest :
- It has helped us know about new places in our vicinity and beyond and rekindled the urge to explore them
- It has made booking flights, accommodation and other requirements easy with the power of today’s gadgets and the internet
- It has also supported the modern-day lifestyle of remote working, where people with a laptop and an internet connection could work from places they travel to
With all these improvements, we could honestly say that smartphones are the new-gen travel agents, where we resort to them for all sorts of information from getting to know about a place and getting there to making reservations.
Travel App Statistics
We are sure that you’re someone who resorts to your smartphone or a portable device to fulfill your travel essentials but to put things into a bigger perspective, here are some interesting stats on travel apps.
48% of the smartphone users in the US feel comfortable using their phone to research, plan and book their travel
In 2018, over 82% of the bookings in the hospitality and travel industry was done without manual intervention or a human interaction
69% of smartphone users also preferred voice search when planning their trip
Also, most importantly, most travel apps are deleted after the first month
We know, the last statistic could be a buzzkill but there are reasons. If you pay notice, there are reasons why people have started preferring apps to travel agents. From personalized services to tailored discounts and deals, they offer a lot of benefits to an average customer.
But if inspite of this, if users are deleting apps that’s because such apps have failed to keep up with the increasing demands of customers. Traveling today also involves impulsive decisions and that’s why businesses should also accommodate features that come in handy during such times.
When doing our research on what developers could keep in mind while building a solid travel app, we felt the inclusion of these four features would make apps future-proof.
Essential Features That Could Make Your Travel App Future-proof
Virtual Tour
Because most of the travel-related decisions we make stem from our online exposure, nobody is completely sure about anything unless and until visited personally. From choosing your destination to your hotel room, you get to experience them only if after you reach.
That’s a major turn off for travelers today as they want everything to be close to perfect during their trip. That’s why it’s very useful to include a virtual tour feature of hotels, rooms, destinations and other locations in your app.
This feature will allow your users to have a digital access to their preferred destinations and rooms before they reserve them. There is always a gap between expectation and reality and this feature could bridge this gap. This will not just ensure credibility to your app but influence its retention statistics as well.
Offline Tickets
Any mobile app development company working on a travel app should realize that instant gratification is the norm today and today’s travelers do not want to wait in a line when visiting places of local interests, airports, hotel lobbies and more places. Besides, battery retention is a big challenge for travelers today and most of us do tend to switch off data whenever possible.
That’s why in both the scenarios, a feature to scan tickets and store them offline or download e-tickets that can be accessed offline becomes inevitable. With this feature, travelers simply have to show them in their respective online reservation counters and keep moving forward with their respective plans.
A simple integration with the device’s calendar makes it further useful as travelers also get a reminder or a notification about an upcoming journey.
GPS-Enabled Exploration
Travelers today hardly like to get help from strangers. Over the last few years, we have developed this mentality to use our smartphones and devices to look for answers. Even when stranded in a new place, we use our GPS to get back to our hotel room or a friend. We need information on demand and that’s why on demand travel app development is inevitable as well.
That’s why a GPS-enabled exploration feature empowers travelers and tourists with the ability to move around on their own. When presented with a list of options on restaurants, places of interests, bars, religious places and more, they could simply choose their preferred destination and proceed.
This is super-helpful in places where the language is a major barrier and for solo travelers who are skeptical to ask for local help as well.
Currency Converter
Like we mentioned, traveling today is impulsive. We get a personalized notification of a deal on flight or accommodation and we immediately want to make plans. And if it’s financially feasible, we make the booking.
That’s why it is handy to incorporate a currency converter feature that will give users an instant idea of how much it would cost in their local currency. For the uninitiated, retaining somebody’s attention is the biggest challenge today.
Without the currency converter, they would have to do a search or use another tool, where they could be distracted by something else (a notification or target ad probably). This results in the abandonment of your app. If you intend to sustain the interest of your users, integrate this functionality where a currency is converted in real-time and presented to your users.
Bonus Feature
Multilingual Support
There are a lot of places on earth where English is not spoken. For both occasional and frequent flyers, language is always a problem. That’s why a built-in language translator feature or multilingual support will allow users to understand things better when they are in a new place.
Wrapping Up
Now tourism is an industry that is perennial. There cannot be a time when travel will lose its charm. Regardless of whether people travel for official, leisure, religious, medical or other specific purposes, they need to plan in advance so their travel is seamless and peaceful. Not just international travel, even domestic travel requires the same level of attention to detail.
That’s why these features are inevitable and would help you make your app future-proof. If you’re developing travel app solutions, keep these features in mind. And if you intend to roll out a new travel app in the market, get in touch with us.
We are a pro travel app development company and we work with the best developers and market analysts in the industry. We implement trending methodologies like hybrid app development and we would give you comprehensive inputs on how you could best develop your app that stands out from the crowd.
Reach out to us today.