A Detailed Look Into the Growing Importance of Travel Applications Industry

Originally published Jun 28, 2016, Updated Oct 1, 2019

There was a time when arranging trips by yourself used to be a challenge only braveheart people would take. It was the time when travel agents were on a rise. They used to handle every part of your requirement, straight from finding a hotel to booking tickets. 

But then, we saw a shift. Travel agents found themselves getting obsolete with people moving to applications on their smartphones to take control of their complete itinerary, only this time with comfort and ease. Between then and now, the demand for mobile travel applications have not lowered. 

In this article, we are going to look into the rising phenomenon of travel application development that has brought a breakthrough in the whole tourism sector. 

Let us start with the market of mobile travel applications first. 

Travel Apps Market

The online travel market is poised to become a $1,091 billion market by the time we reach 2022, which in turn, would register a CAGR of around 11.1% during the estimated period of period 2016-2022.

Here are some reasons backing this growth:

• On an average, the majority of the U.S. leisure travelers make use of 7-8 apps completely throughout their searching, booking and travel experience, with maps (52%), weather (51%) and branded airlines (50%) being on top of the list of those widely used applications. 
• The most important features that they have identified are: real-time flight alerts (65%), ability to view the complete app itinerary in one place (64%) and the ease of searching and booking flights (63%).

Top Players in the Travel Apps Segment

There are a number of applications that have not just become exemplary examples of a travel mobile app development done right but are also leading the growth chart that the travel industry has found itself on. 

Here are the top ones:

TripIt

Google Trip

Roadtrippers

Packing Pro

These apps do not necessarily fall into one segment. They offer services which are found in multiple travel app segments. Let us look at look at the different types of travel apps next to get an understanding of how uniformly the travel app domain is growing. 

Types of Travel Mobile App Development

When you get into the travel application development industry, you will come across several categories. Some of which are:

Travel Itinerary Planning Apps

These all-in-one apps are ones where a travel app development company fills in all the prominent features of the travel needs in one place – accommodation booking, flight booking, bookmarks on places to visit, currency converter information, etc. 

Travel Booking Apps

These applications are focused on helping users book their travel intricate requirements – Flight and Accommodation. 

Location Tracking Apps

These applications make it easy for people to travel from point a to point b when in a foreign city or antion. 

Language Translation Apps 

These apps come in handy for foreign tourists who wish to talk to the natives in their home language, without having the need to learn the same. 

Now that we have peeked into the travel application industry, let’s now attend what we started with – the need for travel applications and thus the rise in demand for a sound travel app development company. 

The Need for Travel Applications

Instant Availability of Information

A travel app gets users a direct answer to everything they need to know about planning a vacation – the way to reach there, flight/train ticket details, hotel booking, places of interest in the destination, etc. 

A one-stop Platform

Travel applications tend to become one-stop solution for all the travel needs. Users do not have to head on to multiple browsers to get answers to their variety of queries, they can get them all in one place. 

Simplified Transactions

One of the best parts of travel applications are the ease to make hassle-free payments. By giving the users a secure platform to pay online, travel mobile applications save them a lot of time. 

The travel application benefits that you read above are the doing of well-strategized features that ease the whole process while becoming the key reason behind the industry’s growth. 

The Key Travel App Features

• Travel Planning
• In-App Booking
• In-App Payment
• Review and Recommendation
• Integrated Translation Facility
• Currency Conversion Information 
• Weather Forecast 

These travel app features tend to be the one that majorly affect the success of the application, while playing a crucial role in deciding the cost of travel application development. 

How much does it cost to make a travel app?

The cost that an online travel app development company charges is dependent on a plethora of different factors and elements, which includes:

• The platform application will be made live on
• The feature set that should be present in the app
• The team size working on the project
• The extent of technology used to develop the application 
• The location of travel application development company

A combination of these factors will result in an estimation of travel app development cost, which can range anywhere from $5000 to $90,000 depending on what elements you want to get into them. For example, the cost to build just a travel booking application will be around $100,000 – $130,000.

As important it is to know the elements that make up for travel applications and the cost of app development, is to know the ways you can earn back the money you invested in the development of your travel application. 

Let us end the article by looking into the ways you can earn back the money and grow the revenue through your travel application.

Primarily, there are two ways you can earn money off of your travel application: Advertising your application through Adsense and other similar ad placement options that include click-based advertising and second is by featuring agents and hotels as premium service providers, in return of an amount.