The year 2020 has witnessed upheaval in the best of its reach and shook the travel and tourism industry. It has turned out to be a hard journey for the hotels to pull their customers. However, as our world is gradually moving towards the unlock period, it has opened a new opportunity galore for the hoteliers to start building a new revenue stream in 2021.
But without the integration of a mobile app, this concept can never grow possible. As users are looking for a digital platform to connect with new travel destinations, and this is made possible with a mobile app.
Here in this blog post, we have brought you a quick look at how to build an engaging business model for your hotel with a mobile app.
Benefits of hotel booking app
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For Customers – Well, most of the benefits are secured only for the customers, which help them avail security and value for money.
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For Hotels – With the booking apps, customers directly reach out to hotels and seek the information they are looking for. Further, the integration of advanced technologies also triggers many other facilities for customers.
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For Travel Agent – They can explore new markets, user engagement, and get brand recognition.
Essential features to build a hotel booking app
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Search button – This button gives users an option to search through different options for hotel rooms, as per date, or a number of people.
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Booking and Cancellation – This feature allows users to take a good note of the booking and cancellation part and here they can make the payment as per their convenience. On the other hand, hotel owners get full information about the booking and cancellation, and it saves them the time of avoiding the last minute hassles.
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Accommodation full-view – Once booked new accommodation, users get a full view of it through the app and can see rooms, pool view, and other information.
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Customer Account – Here users can check their booking history, prefer a language and avail discounts offers.
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Offers & deals -This feature lets the users grab a hold of the offers and deals that are coming through the hotel account.
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Payment gateway – It allows users to make the payment through the app as per their convenient mode. You must include different payment options to make the process easier.
Advanced feature
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Cost forecast– With this feature, users can get a hold onto different expenses that are likely to come along with the hotel and flight booking, and help them keep a check on it.
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Chatbot assistance – A bot feature is one of the most valuable parts of a hotel business, and it gives users a convenience factor to access the services and information without any hurdle involved.
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Virtual Tour– The integration of the latest technologies, opens a floodgate of different services, letting users take a look at the hotel in a 360-degree view.
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Currency Converter– As the name suggests, this feature enables users to get the currency converted as per their home currency and check the prices.
Different business models for hotels
1. Dedicated Model
In this model, the most popular hotels like Sheraton, Hilton, Hyatt, and other hotels, can make their dedicated app and merge their names with other of their branded resorts. It is a great concept for the hotels to make this chain grow popular. These apps work beyond the booking purpose and work more as a branding approach.
2. Advertising Model
In this mode, hotels get an option to earn money through a hotel booking app. In this model, app owners generate revenue by redirecting users onto the hotel websites. It is a less-risk-involved option and has a low investment involvement.
3. Merchant Model
Well, this model lets the app owners sign a contract with the hotel to own a certain number of hotel rooms at a discounted rate. They get these rooms on a wholesale basis, and further, they are offered to the users on an average margin, which comes between 10 to 40%.
4. Aggregator Model
It is one of the most picked models, as it helps to connect a variety of online booking services within a hotel. Here, the user is given an option to search for a hotel, and in return there comes a large number of hotels having flexible price ranges. On selecting the hotel option of liking, the user gets redirected straight to that specific hotel website.
In a nutshell
The Hotel Booking app is a perfect business model for hoteliers in the coming year to stay ahead of their competition. So getting an app for the hotel business, is not anymore about running in the race, but is a necessity that must be addressed. With all the hopes that the coming year would bring you success and prosperity in abundance, I sign-off for today.
And Happy Holidays to you all!
