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How to use travel apps to increase the customer base for your travel agency?


Aasif Khan
By Aasif Khan | Last Updated on March 15th, 2024 11:25 am
use travel apps to increase the customer base - Appy Pie

The way we travel has changed and business of travel has changed with it. Whether you are a travel consultant or a full-service travel agency, your digital presence needs to go beyond your website.

The modern consumer is most comfortable using mobile apps for any and all of their needs.

Naturally, when they are making travel plans, including research for destinations, finding hotels, planning itineraries, or finding the right travel agency – they look for the convenience of a travel app.

In this blog we are going to talk about the following:

What is a travel app?

A travel app or a mobile travel app is a software application that was developed particularly to be used on mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. These apps can be used for a variety of purposes including booking tickets, planning itineraries, hotel bookings, and more!
Do you have an idea for a travel app? All you need is the idea and just about 10 minutes to get your app up and ready to be published!

Types of travel apps

There are different types of travel needs and according to the needs of a traveler, different types of travel apps can be built easily.

  1. Flight booking apps
  2. Flight booking applications let the app users compare the price of tickets for different flights, compare timings, book tickets, and sometimes even buy goods from duty free shops. These apps would typically include payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Google Wallet, and more.

  3. Accommodation booking apps
  4. Accommodation booking apps help users look at different hotel rooms or any other kind of accommodation based on pricing, user ratings and reviews and compare all available options. These apps have pictures and details of the listing so that the app users can make an informed choice. These apps also let the app users make reservations and even pay for their bookings. Some hotel booking apps also let you check in to the hotel using an electronic key within the app.

  5. Airline apps
  6. Airline applications let the users look at available tickets, book flights and even choose their seats. In the airline app, you can also add features like web check in, getting an electronic boarding pass, track luggage, enjoy in-flight entertainment, and even find lounge locations for a great customer experience.

  7. Transport apps
  8. When people fly out to a different city, state, or country, they do not have their own vehicles to move around. This is where transport apps come in handy, in letting them get around locally. The transport apps give directions, alternative routes, while providing details about available transportation. You can make a transport app that integrates with your own taxi booking app.

  9. Travel guide apps
  10. No one carries a hard copy of a travel guide for each city they visit. This is why creating a travel guide app is a great idea. It offers great convenience to the app users by giving them information about any city on their fingertips so that they do not have to worry about asking around aimlessly or stacking up travel guides that may be outdated!

Which type of mobile app do you plan to build? Try the no code travel app builder from Appy Pie now!

Mobile Travelling - Appy Pie

Benefits of travel apps

Once you know the type of travel app you want to make, you must be aware of the kind of benefits you will get from your travel app and the benefits the app users will get from your travel app. Some of the most popular travel apps have worked wonders due to the following distinct advantages.

Benefits of travel apps for your customers

Mobile apps are the most frequently used software by the largest consumer groups. There are abundant benefits that you as customers may gain from travel apps, and we are listing the top few benefits of travel apps here:

  1. One stop shop
  2. A good travel app would let you keep all your travel information in one single app.

    This means all the hotel bookings, flight bookings, your itinerary, and any other travel documents you may need while traveling would be safely and conveniently stored in one single app.

    It makes the entire travel experience trouble free and convenient as you would not have to keep flipping between multiple mobile applications.

  3. Access from anywhere
  4. You carry your phone everywhere. This means you are carrying the travel app and all your travel information with you at all times.

    Whether you want to quickly check your booking details, make a change in your booking, cancel a booking, or make a new booking, you can do it easily from anywhere, anytime.

  5. Easy to get in touch
  6. Travel mobile applications make it easy to get in touch with the business through helpful features like chats or messages.

    This means for any query or concern you, as a customer can reach the business easily and clarify or rectify the issue without getting into much of a trouble.

  7. Improved user experience
  8. A mobile app provides a more evolved and personalized user experience.

    These highly personalized applications draw upon the native features and functionalities of the mobile device to provide a smooth experience.

    Apps are fast, convenient, and need lower connectivity than websites which means that app users can access the content more quickly and engage more with the travel app.

  9. Enhanced two-way communication
  10. Communication is key for any business. However, an app user gets the advantage of an uninterrupted two-way communication instead of just getting offers and other mundane information.

    This means not only do you get personalized lucrative offers, but also are able to let them know of your problems, feedback, drop in a good word, and even share content from the app directly to your social media profiles.

It is important that you give all these advantages to all your clients. What are you waiting for?

Benefits of travel apps for travel businesses

There are a number of benefits when it comes to building an app for your business, however, we must discuss the benefits of building an app for your travel business.

  1. Improve booking process
  2. No one in the world wants to go through long and tedious booking process. Mobile apps deliver your customers quick, and hassle-free booking experience in simple steps. In a travel mobile app, travelers can also store their passport information, preferences and payment details, and save a lot of time during their next booking.

  3. Provide easy access to information
  4. With a mobile app, integrated with travel APIs, you can keep your customers engaged by providing them real-time information about the destinations, price fares, etc. they are looking for. By enabling map feature in the travel app, you can help your customers get the directions to their destination without any hassle.

  5. Reinforce brand awareness
  6. Having a mobile app for your travel business will allow you showcase your travel services to your customers in a better way. When you publish your travel app on major app stores, like Google Play and iTunes, it gets recognized by millions of customers across the world who are looking for the same services. It will ultimately reinforce your brand awareness, and make customers familiar with your services, thereby helping you increase your customer base and sales.

  7. Improve business processes
  8. With an interactive travel app, travel agents or travel agencies can improve their processes efficiently, while reducing their operating costs. An app also reduces excel work and make all your internal processes paperless. A mobile app widely helps travel agencies to get valuable feedback from their customers, which they can use to strengthen their services.

  9. Enhance customer service
  10. Once customers have made travel booking, it might happen that they need some changes in their booking like hotel room, flight or might cancel their trip due to any kind of emergency. In such situations, a mobile app can help customers instantly connect with the travel agencies and get reliable solutions for their problems.

  11. Gain valuable customer insight
  12. A travel business owner needs customer insight to be able to make improvements to their business process, their mobile application, and the offerings.

    Apart from the app analytics that tell you the way your users behave within the app, you also gain a more evolved understanding of the aspects of your business you need to work on and the ones that are working smoothly.

  13. Run efficient retargeting campaigns
  14. Mobile applications make it easier to reach out to inactive users or people who almost converted but abandoned their buying journey mid-way.

    Yes, you can send emails to all those ‘almost’ conversions, but with your travel app you can easily send out targeted push notifications to re-engage them more efficiently.

  15. Send targeted offers and communication
  16. Generic push notifications are ok, but when you have a travel app, you can target the push notifications on the basis of their search history, their interests, demography, and other such information.

  17. Use the app as an effective marketing tool
  18. Travel apps can prove to be a great marketing tool for your business. Not only can you send out promotional offers to your existing customers through targeted push notifications but also allow social media integrations.

    If your content is worth sharing, you will get free promotion on social media as your app users start sharing it on their favorite social channels.

Conclusion

So, if you are looking to expand your travel business internationally, you can now create a travel app in a matter of minutes with the awesome app builder, Appy Pie AppMakr.

You need no coding skills – just a great idea, a dash of creativity and less than 10 minutes of time to develop an app for your travel agency and publish it to different app stores in multiple languages.

Do you have something to add to the blog? Let us know in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you!

Aasif Khan

Head of SEO at Appy Pie

App Builder

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