Travel App Developers (2024)

This guide will cover the best travel app development services, how much it costs, top app development features, and how you stand to benefit from using travel app development companies.

Travel apps help modern-day travellers plan their trips, from leaving their houses to their final destination and back again.

Like any industry, building and developing travel apps requires several must-have features.

Reviews and recommendations functionality and social media integration are essential, as are interactive scheduling and push notifications for updates.

In-app language translators and currency converters also further help users during their travel. Making the app as useful as it can be significantly increases engagement.

Need help knowing where to start? We’ll cover everything you need to know about travel app development.

What is a travel app?

A travel app is a mobile application for booking travel reservations, tracking loyalty points, and browsing travel packages.

Travel apps also help users to research destinations, find good flight (and accommodation) deals, and book other travel services.

In fact, 58% of travel apps get used monthly, and 35% of users found these apps via mobile app stores. Travel apps make planning and booking travel as hassle-free as possible.

For example, TripCase is a free app that helps you organize your trip by making an itinerary for you. The itinerary can include flights, accommodations, rental cars, and more.

The aim is to take the stress out of travelling, and the best travel apps act as the ultimate companions during journeys.

The problem is that there’s no shortage of travel apps on the Android and Apple marketplaces these days, so your travel app will need to truly shine to stand out.

Types of travel apps

Examples of mobile travel apps include the following:

• Travel guide apps
• Hotel booking apps
• Navigation apps
• Flight booking apps
• Accommodation booking apps
• City tour apps

Travel app developer example

Source: Guru Technolabs

With travel planning apps, users are able to find the best travel packages for their budget, make reservations, and plan a safe journey. They can check the reviews of other users to help them plan.

Flight booking apps allow users to book budget-friendly flight tickets. Users can typically select multiple airline booking options while comparing the overall costs. Promotional codes and discounts to get cheaper flight tickets are found in the best flight booking apps.

Accommodation booking apps enable your users to connect easily with hotel owners of a particular location. Users are also able to compare the pricing range and other facilities at their leisure.

Think carefully about which category your finished travel app would fall under before getting started.

Why should I develop a travel app?

For a start, travel apps enable people to travel with far less hassle, so they are genuinely useful tools that make a difference.

Any place a person wants to visit (or any hotel) is typically a few taps away on their smart device. From that perspective, you are helping people worldwide with your mobile app.

But what about monetary purposes? After all, few can survive on goodwill alone. The answer is another positive one because travel apps are relevant and useful to so many people, and there are plenty of ways to earn money from them.

The easiest way to make money from a travel app is to take a commission from the listed services inside the app; the most popular travel apps can be lucrative.

For instance, if you offer users accommodation, each host or hotel might pay a small commission just for getting listed in your app. This model is beneficial both for app creators and listing owners.

Travel app developer example

Source: S-PRO

Other methods include selling specific features separately instead of offering them as part of a premium package. For example, users might be able to view exclusive listings in a booking app.

That’s not to mention in-app ads or the merchant model where you act as a booking service in stock. Travel apps can also help you to grow a brand and are able to cross-promote other products.

As long as you plan accordingly, the overall return on investment from travel apps is often more than worth it.

What is the travel app development process?

You need to develop the best mobile travel app possible. One that loads swiftly, runs smoothly, has flight booking capability, location-based services, and doesn’t suffer from persistent glitches.

Building a good travel app is about following a well-defined process that ensures nothing gets missed during the app’s development, from conducting market research to ongoing maintenance. Let’s have a look.

1. Conduct your market research

Market research is the first step in developing a travel app.

Understanding your business’s target audience and the issues customers face while travelling is essential. It’s about finding a problem or frustration and then delivering a solid solution or proposing an answer to something that will aid customers.

You should create your travel app using what you learn during this market research. Ensure you make notes as you go.

2. Decide your strategy and goals

You need to understand the advantages and benefits that you’ll receive from creating travel apps overall.

Think about your KPIs and set yourself business goals–a travel app is a good way to generate profit, but what else do you want to achieve, and how do you plan on getting there?

Take some time to get this right, as it’s a critical part of the process that will determine your app’s success.

3. Find an app development company

Searching for an experienced and reliable app development company is one of the most complicated challenges you’ll come up against.

You need to think carefully about the features you want to include in your travel app; doing so helps you narrow down your requirements and make better decisions in the long run.

With the help of a travel app development company, you’ll need to create a product backlog list with all the features you want to see in your app, so accomplishing this step is helpful in two ways.

4. Create a professional travel app

A key feature of a travel app lies in its ability to solve particular issues during the travel process and provide a great customer experience at all times.

Design is the most important part of developing any mobile app. The main steps include the following:

• Research: Research is necessary for creating top-notch products. You must analyze the market and your brand’s competitors while adopting some best practices.
• User experience: The UX (user experience) is about creating user-friendly navigation and ensuring logical elements in your layout.
• Visual design: Design UI mockups and use mood boards to see which colour scheme is the best for your travel app.
• Branding: Branding comprises animations and logo development which add a unique feeling when using the travel app.

5. Test and launch the app

This step is arguably the most crucial part of the travel app development process.

By the time the app is ready for launch, all of its features need to be implemented and work without any technical bugs.

Test the travel app until you’re confident there are no serious issues–issues which can derail it before it even has a fair chance.

6. Create your campaigns

If you’re creating a travel app, starting a marketing campaign for your brand is always a great idea so that people come to you about your services.

Doing so improves your brand’s visibility across the board and increases the chance your travel app will get downloaded.

Travel app developer example

Source: Brightec

7. Collect and analyze feedback

Have you ever wondered how you’ll create a travel app that users return to every time they travel? That’s where collecting feedback comes into the equation.

You need to learn about your travel app from them–what it’s good at and what it lacks. What things would they like to see? For instance, maybe they think searching within the app is too complicated. If so, you can work to address this and improve as you go.

Of course, remember this process should be continuous, and you should gather feedback before releasing any new travel app features.

8. Ongoing support

Developing a travel app is an ongoing process and doesn’t stop after the app gets launched. That’s just the start.

Ensure that your travel app is utilizing all the latest versions of operating systems while providing the best performance to as many users as possible.

The improvement of processes and products should be made by adopting new tech. It’s smart to keep your focus on marketing to bring in new users and maintain excitement as well.

Travel app development best practices and features

Here are some of the main aspects to consider when developing a travel app, including best practices as well as essential and advanced features.

Ensure you have search functionality

The search functionality is where most of your efforts should go overall. The functionality should be good enough that it allows your customers to travel to every corner of the world–should that be their desire.

You need to incorporate all search queries and forms that an individual typically uses in everyday life into your travel booking app design and have a solid plan to go along with it.

Implement flight booking management

Using APIs, you should allow your customers to view real-time flight details, including the following:

• Availability
• Seating details
• Single and return details

Travel app developers should introduce a wide range of options for customers that actively encourage the booking of flights due to the ease of use.

Travel app developer example

Source: Cheesecake Labs

The option to easily contact support

During your travel app development, you need to ensure you are available to your end users whenever they need you–not difficult to contact with hard-to-find emails and forms.

Even if you can’t be physically present for the communication, you still need a reliable solution, such as a chatbot that can answer basic customer queries.

Essential features

Your travel app will need to offer a lineup of essential features that the app can’t function without overall.

The MVP is the minimum standard to showcase your product to your target audience, and the features must meet the most critical functions of travel and flight booking apps.

These are the essential features your travel app needs to have:

1. In-app translation

2. Push notifications

3. User ratings

4. Weather forecasting

5. Location-based services

6. Accessible image menu

7. Loyalty program

8. Integrated with social media

9. Online payment system

10. Emergency services

Focus on travel app features that provide the greatest value to your customers. Amass feedback, let users tell you what features make sense to them, and then implement the changes when possible.

Travel app developer example

Source: ArcTouch

Advanced features

Advanced features are effectively optional, but they allow your travel app to offer value to users. Advanced travel app features include the following:

1. World clock time converter

2. AR

3. Navigation services

4. Payment history

5. Geo-tracking

6. Currency rate converter

7. Itinerary generator

8. Chatbots

9. Analytics

10. Feedback portal

Of course, the more advanced features you add, the higher the cost of the mobile travel app’s development. Keep this in mind when deciding your final budget–we’ll detail the average costs in the next section.

How much does it cost to develop a travel mobile app?

Development costs of travel apps vary. Below are the average estimates, as well as some extra things to keep in mind:

• The per-hour cost for a travel app from Australia or the US is around $80–100k.
• The average cost per hour in the case of India is around $40–$80.
• As a general rule, the average per-hour cost declines as you move from a Western nation to an Eastern one.
• Considering functionalities and features, the overall travel app development cost is around $100,000 to $130,000. Of course, even this varies based on your precise app project requirements.

Starting with basic animations and vectors and then upgrading your design style as the app’s popularity and download rates grow is a good way to keep initial costs affordable.

Travel apps have changed the tourism industry as they have given customers the power to make bookings and plan their travel itineraries with ease. That said, it’s worth contacting a travel app development company for an estimate before doing anything else.

How can I benefit from travel app development services?

Partnering with travel app development companies allows you to create customer-friendly apps that enable users to view airlines, hotel chains, and car rental brands with ease.

These expert developers let you take advantage of the significant opportunity available while keeping things as hassle-free as possible.

Travel app developers build highly-scalable apps, whether they’re accommodation booking or travel guide apps. These development companies create stunning apps that use the latest tech and trends while meeting user expectations.

Travel app developer example

Source: Powercode

Some of the critical benefits of travel app development companies include the following:

• Cheaper development costs — Travel apps typically get designed using different frameworks, which allow developers to reuse the code for multiple apps.
• Better functionality — Travel app development companies provide excellent functionality and usability with top-notch travel-focused features, such as the ability to find the perfect route from an airport or train station.
• Custom plans — Custom travel app development plans designed to fit all needs, big or small, and typically come with superior scalability.
• Enhanced security — Travel apps get built with increased security for your customers using the latest app encryption technology.
• Data protection — Better data management solutions that protect customer data, such as names and addresses, and help you stay compliant.
• Leading communication — Communication at every key stage of your travel app development allows you to reach new customers and grow the brand.

If you’re planning to design a travel app, getting a free quote from mobile app development professionals is usually a wise idea–this is especially true if you’re a non-developer or a beginner.

Get started with the best travel app developers

To recap, the most critical reasons for having a travel app are the following:

• Users can find cheap flights and plan their trip
• Real-time updates such as departures and disruption alerts keep them informed
• You can use them to cross-promote products and grow your brand
• You can offer a list of ideas to make the most out of their travel while increasing engagement
• Users can book hotels, vehicles, and flights
• They can be highly lucrative and evergreen
• You can detail local public transport routes and schedules

There are a number of app development companies that take on travel app development projects and have app developers with experience specifically catered to these apps. Here we’ve put together for you a list of the best.

List of travel mobile app development companies