Travel has always been one of the booming industries, thanks to the never-ending quench of travel enthusiasts, Leisure travel is also considered to be one of the most satisfying ways for people around the world to spend and also be happy about it’. And to add to its sheen is the online advantage to Travel.
Travel is now more accessible and hassle-free than ever before – thanks to the consumer-friendly travel websites and travel apps. Here are a few awesome statistics that’ll make you ponder the idea of building your own travel website and travel application.
Use this template to understand what you need and learn how you can build your next ‘winning’ MVP. Start A Project
Global online travel sales have registered a phenomenal rise from USD 470.97 billion in 2014 to USD 755.94 billion in 2019. More so, it is predicted to cross USD 817.94 billion in 2020.
Global Online Travel Sales 2014-2020 Chart (Sales in Billion U.S. Dollars)
The proportion of direct website bookings in 2018 was 66.7%, which shows the growing influence of travel websites on online sales.
51 percent of smartphone users use their device for travel-related activities. This involves a host of different mobile apps for travel from flight booking, hotel booking, currency converter, GPS, weather, translator, taxi booking, etc.
Most travel bookings are executed at least 90 days before the trip. However, the next 3 months are spent online to zero down on the experience factor’ like reading reviews about hotels, restaurants nearby, or about the spa in the resort.
With Reviews playing a crucial role, it is important for travel websites, hotels, and resorts to request reviews. Statistics reveal that 95% of reviews given are on average positive. This can be a great tool to boost your business.
Booking pattern analysis reveals that the desktop still remains the most popular device when it comes to travel bookings across the globe. This can be a notable factor to estimate the demand for travel websites even in the age of heightened mobility.
Total Travel Searches Chart: Desktop vs Smartphones vs Tablet
How to Choose the Best Feature for Your Travel App MVP
When you are creating a travel website or application, keep your eyes open. Research on what is trending, to get an insight about what your target market (the travel enthusiasts) is searching for. And make sure you analyze the User Search behavior (by the device used) in the Travel industry as they differ for the website and mobile app users.
1. Analyze Users Patterns of Search
Analyze user search patterns and interests, to decide the apt travel website and app features for MVP that are popular and in-demand.
2. Do Competitor Analysis
Keep an eye on competitor travel apps and websites. Research and read reports on what is working and what is not.
But remember, is of no use cloning a successful product. Find out the ‘good to have’ features the popular product is missing and build your own MVP for travel.
How Techtic Can Help Build Travel App with Essential Features
If you are a travel enthusiast looking to build a travel website or a travel app, you must have come across this very question umpteen times – How much does an app like Uber, Airbnb, Yelp, or Trivago cost?
Well, it will cost you a lot of your hard-earned money for sure. But before you take that BIG leap inspired by their thumping success story – here is a word of caution from the experts at Techtic.
DO NOT build a clone or a replica of a winning application or website. It is not only too difficult to dethrone a king, but is also not worth the time, money, and effort invested.
DO NOT invest your money to build a travel app for an ‘app idea’ you aren’t sure has a market need.
Instead, build a minimum viable product (MVP)for your travel app idea and once you are convinced of its potential and its need for the target audience, build a full-fledged travel application.
This calls for the need to choose the most viable business strategy, and clarify the purpose for which you are building a travel app MVP, along with identifying the most common use cases. Here we discuss the most viable features for each kind of Travel application:
1. MVP for Travel Planning/Organizer App
Search for destinations
Search for itineraries
Set up schedules
Set up store e-tickets
Set up QR codes
Building a travel planning app like TripIt, Foursquare, Google Trips, or Passbook usually starts at USD 55,000 for a web app and USD 75,000 for a web and one mobile app.
Interestingly, 85% of travel apps have the navigation and geolocation feature, and this is integral even if it is in the MVP or beta version. There has been a steep rise of 150 percent in the Near Me searches in Google Map since 2018 – strongly indicating the dominating effect of this feature and the search engine.
Building a navigation app like Google Maps, Maps.me, Waze, Google/Facebook Places starts at USD 40,000 for one mobile platform.
Improved filters (a type of hotel room, room tariff, with/without breakfast, number of guests, check-in and check-out dates)
Loyalty program
Multilingual
Global currency support
Attractive deals
The average development price for building a booking application like Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, Kayak, etc starts from USD 55,000 for web platform; and from USD 75,000 for web and one mobile platform (Android or iOS).
Filter algorithm that chaffs fair reviews by real users
Reviews can be hidden, but never deleted – stays visible in user profiles
Stickers, badges, virtual currency, ranks to improve engagement and retention
Building review and rating apps like Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Trivago with its API approximately cost USD 50,000 for web and USD 65,000 for web and mobile platform.
Building an app like Uber, Lyft, Careem, or Grab would cost USD 60-70K for the web platform and USD 85-95K for the web and one mobile platform.
Why is it Wise to Build an MVP for Travel App or Website before You Take the Big Leap
Ideas and innovations have never found the glory as they do now in the era of the startup revolution. With startups disrupting the way ideas are conceptualized and executed, what finally matters is to build products that customers will buy. Period.
With product development demanding investment of your time, effort, and most importantly (hard-earned) money to give shape to your idea, weigh in the viability of your product idea by building a Minimum Viable Product.
1.Work on mending the tangible areas
When you build an MVP before developing your final product, you get to assess and estimate the validation your product would receive in the market. You could find out if your idea (and not just your product) has a place in the market and how effective it would be when you launch.
2.Be open to take critical feedback
Rolling out an MVP also gives you insights into the actual market response to your product. The response could be both positive and negative reviews. While you can optimize the positive aspects of your apps, you can take corrective measures with the negative ones. It’s a win-win anyway.
3.Analyze the actual market response
Continuing our last point, an MVP can fetch you some critical feedback about your travel app’s functionality, UI, or others. Without getting frustrated, it’s better to hear them out as they would help give a better shape to your final app.
4.Estimate the market validation
With the critical feedback, you now have to pay attention to areas of improvement, identify loopholes and fix them. These criticisms are of high value as they directly come from users, who have worked on your MVP.
Wrapping Up
So, now you know what an MVP is and its importance in the development cycle. Developing an MVP can minimize your loss, save your product from getting flagged and fetch you more rewards you overlooked. If you intend to develop an MVP for a travel apps or websites, get in touch with us. Our industry experience and expertise are all that your business needs.
Project Developed By Techtic
Shokas
Our team built a seamless platform for this free mobile app for visitors to the Caribbean, including an and online booking portal that improved digital access and boost traffic significantly.
Abhishek, Heading design department is one of the most innovative UI/UX experts for web with over 9 years of experience. He remains updated with the changing web trends and share his knowledge for performance improvements.
Abhishek Singh 
