Do you know over the past 100 years, the amount of working hours has declined dramatically? According to ourworldindata.org, due to the industrial revolution, the average working hour all over the world has been reduced by almost 50%. Today’s world believes in productivity, not in long relentless working hours. So, the leisure period has been a motivation for them to go for a holiday trip. According to research conducted by Donald F. Holeck & Claudia van Deijck, Tourist receipts got tripled between 1950 and 1960. It almost tripled again in the next decade, increasing by almost a factor of 6 between 1970 to 1980. Between 1950 to 1989, the international tourist receipt grew from 2.1 billion USD to 209.2 billion USD. So, as the quality of life has been better, people tend to spend more time enjoying holidays.
Statistics To Prove The Importance of Travel Apps
After the immersion of the world wide web and mobile technology, the travel and tourism industry has experienced a shift in the trend. According to online travel markets – statistics and facts, as of 2020, 65% of the revenue from the global travel and tourism market comes from online sales channels. In that year, the online travel agent market size worldwide was approximately 432 billion U.S. dollars and it was forecast to reach over 833 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. So, the significance of technology in the travel and tourism industry is more than ever. The influence of technology on the travel and tourism industry in Bangladesh is on the rise too. Nowadays, people like to search for stuff related to traveling online. Finding information is now easier than ever. The following facts from condorferries.co.uk will show the influence of technology that has been ruling over the tourism and travel industry:
- 70% of travelers research travel on their smartphones.
- 83% of adults in the United States now prefer to book their travel on the Internet.
- Only 45% of UK travelers are comfortable researching, planning, and booking vacations to new destinations using their smartphones.
- In 2018, 82% of all travel bookings were made entirely online, either through a mobile app or a website, with no human involvement.
- By 2020, online travel companies that provide customers with a "one-stop solution" are predicted to control 41% of the online digital travel market.
- According to Google data, travel-related queries such as "tonight" and "today" have increased by more than 519% in the last five years.
Travel App Ideas to Explore in 2022
So, it is evident to say that customer behavior is more inclined towards online usage rather than dealing offline. As it is stated earlier in this article, the travel and tourism industry has lots of potential for business. A web-based application for any kind of travel-related problem can be a source of generating profits. It is already seen how customer behavior is favoring online-based services. The market size of this industry is so big that for each type of service, a specific application can be built. Let's look at some of the possible app development ideas for the travel industry in 2022:
Ticket Booking Apps:
The most important part of a tour is to book tickets for transportation. Checking the seat availability on the planned date is the first and foremost job to do when it comes to planning a trip. Upon checking, the prices from different companies are compared. All these features are supplied inside the app. This app also offers features like tracking flights, checking the delay time, check-in, boarding time, landing time, etc. Apart from booking flight tickets, different kinds of transportation like bus tickets can also be bought from such apps. As some travel destinations are easier to reach and explore via bus, bus schedules, available boarding, and landing station location, ticket fare, etc. services are provided with such kinds of apps. As it was discussed earlier, people nowadays feel too lazy to visit a physical store and buy a ticket, online ticket booking apps are a great way to solve this issue.
Hotel Booking apps:
Another crucial part of a tour is to find where to stay. Apart from the old-school rented hotel room stay, nowadays travelers like to explore new ways of accommodation like couch-surfing, homestay or hostel stay. Such sort of apps can be a solution to find out any of these means. This app provides an option to check hotel room availability, check on the prices, compare them, and finally upon selecting, book them in advance so that the tourist doesn’t need to loiter here and there to find out the best place to stay. Staying in a hostel works best for solo tourists or tourists with a budget plan as it is a lot cheaper. This app is the best way to find the safest hostel to stay in at night. Couch-surfing and house renting are modern-day stuff. The idea is to stay at someone's place who is not in town and use his/her furniture in exchange for some cheap payment. This is another cost-cutting technique when traveling on a budget.
Apps for finding tourist attractions & fun activities:
A new place comes with a lot of unknown facts. For a traveler, finding where to go and what to do is a tedious process. An application for solving this problem comes in handy in this regard. This app can be used for finding tourist attractions in a specified place and what fun activities or adventure sports the traveler must try. For example, if someone is in Nepal, s/he has to try paragliding, bungee jumping, and water river rafting. The app can suggest such attractions and activities to let their user know.
Apps for accessing local public transport:
It is not always feasible to use ride-sharing platforms like Uber and grab to commute between a city due to many reasons. Using local public transport is a great alternative here. Also, it is a great way to explore a city and its habitats. In a new place, it is always hard to find the timetable of the local transport system. Bus, trains whatever it is, the boarding station, landing station, which one to use, ticket fare, all of these decisions are hard to make for an unknown person. The app helps a tourist in such scenarios.
Apps for budget travelers:
Research has shown that the tendency to go on a trip among teens is much more than that of adults. So, finance becomes an issue for such kids. Budget traveling, thus, is a concept where a traveler tries to cut his cost in the most minimal way possible. Finding the cheapest hotel to stay in, the easiest way to reach a place, and a low-cost restaurant to eat; everything can be done via an app. This app has a specific target audience. But the market size is significant. Features like couch-surfing, hostel stay, and room renting are generally built into the application.
Charging station finder:
So far, as we have seen, how a tour is dependent on the use of mobile and internet, it is, thus, important to keep the battery charged. But finding a charging station is nothing but a hassle that no traveler wants to take. An app for finding a charging station comes in handy in such scenarios. This solution can work for finding gas filling stations also.
Weather forecast app:
Checking on the weather before planning a trip is important. Not all the place is suitable to visit in all weather condition. Sometimes some weather condition is too bad for a trip. Every place has a specific weather condition when the scenic beauty is too mesmerizing to enjoy. Thus having an app that forecasts weather is of great use. Such sort of app is generally built with lots of other features too.
Apart from all these categories, there are other advantages of travel apps in the travel and tourism industry which can be turned into a business idea.
In-app Features of a Good Travel App
Since we have discussed a number of app development categories for the travel and tourism industry in 2022, now let's look at the exclusive features that make an app trendy, easy to use, and user-friendly:
Currency conversion:
Conversion of currency is crucial when it comes to traveling overseas or outside the native country. A built-in app feature will make the app handy and will provide comfort to the user. Thus the user can convert any amount without any errors or mistakes.
Language translation:
The language barrier is one of the major drawbacks a traveler has to carry when traveling outside his native language area. So, a language translator app is a nice way to solve this problem. Normally the app uses the voice command option to change any word or sentence from the native language to the foreign language.
Online payment system:
As we have discussed earlier, different kinds of booking apps are very suitable for the travel industry and, these apps are ruling the online travel industry. With the booking system, if the app provides a payment system, it will make the app user-friendly. Not only the booking payment but also the opportunity to pay for any kind of financial dealing will be of huge comfort for the user. Such a feature makes the app popular for its convenience.
VR-based tour:
With the advancement of technology, now, virtual visual experiences can be given from a remote location. Using this “Virtual Reality” technology, hotel rooms, and places to visit can be shown in the app. Such a view gives the initial inspiration to visit a particular place. It makes the decision of selecting a hotel room easy. For example, a virtual reality experience of skydiving thrills a user and inspire him/her to give it a shot.
Reminder Notification:
Generally, a tour is filled up with lots of events and activities. Remembering each and every timetable is a bit of a hectic thing to do. Thus a trip requires a number of notifications such as the opening and closing time of a museum, a perk or a zoo, a theatre time, a movie show-time, a laser show-time or a flight boarding time, and so on. A built-in-app feature like this helps the user not to miss any events or schedules.
ChatBot:
In a new place, it is expected to have lots of queries. Having a chatbot in an app is a great way to get popularity. The frequently asked questions are a good way to start off the feature for any specified travel destination. With the help of artificial intelligence, this chatbot gets smarter and is able to answer more specific questions.
Review Competition:
A built-in review-providing competition is a great way to push the users for giving reviews to any places they have been. It can be a restaurant, a hotel, a club, or anything. An active leaderboard is there to show the topper. The temptation to win and receive an exciting offer like special discounts on ticket bookings or hotel bookings compels the user to give reviews and earn points. Thus the app receives more engagement and also enriches the review database. This database is used to suggest hotels, restaurants, flights, etc.
Augmented Reality:
A built-in augmented reality feature provides real-time information upon holding the camera toward an object. For example, if a user points his/her phone camera toward a restaurant, augmented reality is able to show real-time information like its review rating, its closing time, its menu, etc.
Restroom Finder:
During holidays on trips, finding restrooms in a completely new place is a difficult job to do. Thus a feature for finding nearby restrooms is a great way to earn customer satisfaction. The app will show you all of the washrooms nearby or in a certain area. As a result, traveling will be stress-free.
Wrapping up
The most successful mobile app development ideas are the ones enlisted above. Such types of applications and their in-app features make an application unique, and easy to use. In building a loyal customer base for the travel industry, it is important to build a “One-stop solution” for all the problems related to a tour.
