We can hardly name one industry not penetrated by mobile apps. Most of the leading industries actually have been the frontline app beneficiaries. No wonder, the hotel and travel industry is not an exception to this. Thanks to mobile apps the way we plan to travel and book hotels has changed beyond recognition. Mobile apps have become part and parcel of the hotel and travel industry as a whole.
In spite of such a huge and overwhelming role of mobile apps in changing the dynamics of the hotel and travel sector, there are too many misconceptions around. The hotel booking industry in particular is a victim of these misconceptions.
Here we will explain the principal misconceptions and myths preventing them from building their own apps. Before as a hotelier you decide to hire a hotel booking mobile app development company india, getting a rough idea of these misconceptions and the counter logic is important.
Mobile Apps No Different Than Mobile Web
This is the most widespread and widely perceived misconception about the mobile apps that prevail among the hoteliers. This misconception is due because of their lack of understanding about how apps and the web are different and their respective value propositions. Many small travel companies and hoteliers think mobile apps are similar to the mobile web.
Completely contrary to their views, mobile apps offer a broad repository of native features and an engaging native app user experience to ensure great customer satisfaction and a smooth flow of business conversions through booking.
Through notifications, mobile apps are able to stay continuously connected and engaged with the audience. The mobile apps also help to localize business brands with hyper-local marketing using GPS sensors. Thanks to the robust localization features of smartphones, apps can deliver a highly hyper-local user experience which is a crucial aspect of the travel and hotel industry.
On top of all, in the travel and hotel booking sector, apps offer a higher scope of personalization, advanced localization, and satisfactory user experience, and all these help in enhanced business conversion.
Mobile Apps Are Built For Major Brands
Most small hoteliers and local travel companies think that mobile apps, particularly for big brands. They harbor the notion that mobile apps can be more effective if you have a global or national level audience reach across cities. No doubt, there cannot be a bigger misconception than this simply because mobile apps are the tools to help small brands compete with bigger ones.
Sadly, this common misconception prevents many small hoteliers and travel players from opting the app marketing in spite of having a unique value proposition. Thus misconception makes them completely miss the business opportunities created by mobile apps.
Contrary to this general misconception, in a rapidly evolving sector like travel and hotels, mobile apps are the most effective tools to help small and local brands avail business opportunities. If you consider the upcoming mobile app trends of 2022, the small business apps from every industry will make a great presence.
We all know that the local travel specialties and authentic local charms in hospitality are key-value offerings that the travel industry around the world bank upon. Naturally, local travel brands around the world can really avail of great business opportunities by using hyper-local tools like travel and hotel booking mobile apps.
Mobile Apps Are Too Expensive
In the end, the ultimate misconception that prevents most local and small players in the travel and hospitality sector from building their own branded mobile apps represents their concern for the development cost. It is a fact that the vast majority of local travel businesses and small hoteliers around the world think building mobile apps is really a costly project that their business is incapable to afford.
No doubt, this is another misconception given the fact that there are too many ways to mitigate the cost factors for building mobile apps. In complete defiance to their claims, actually developing mobile apps these days is not as expensive as it was a few years ago. On the other hand, there are now alternative options such as Progressive Web App (PWA).
To the surprise of many such people having this misconception about development cost, a fully-fledged feature rich cross-platform app with several native features can now be built even on a shoestring budget. There is the option of turning a website into a fully-fledged mobile app with all localization features helping travel and hotel brands to achieve great business conversion.
As an additional option to address your worries on the cost of development, there is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development approach. According to this approach, you can just build a very basic app with bare minimum features so that you can keep the development cost and time at a very low level. Once the app is launched, based upon the user feedback you can make value additions through new feature updates over several incremental releases.
You gave the option of the latest fusion technologies like Progressive Web App (PWA) to turn your existing website into a mobile app like entity that technically remains still a website accessible by browser, while delivering native apps like user experience and home screen access.
Apps Offer Similar Booking Features As The Website
Finally, we must point out the false notions about the capabilities of mobile apps in contrast to the websites. Many hoteliers and small travel businesses still think that when it comes to booking rooms or trips, there are not many differences between the two. This is a big misconception and to think that mobile apps offer the same booking features as the web is a serious understatement.
Many of these businesses think that the booking feature provided by their good old websites is quite enough and there is hardly any special value proposition that can be considered for offering mobile apps to help customers book their facilities. Many argue that just because booking is already happening well through their websites, what extra benefits can they get by investing in a fresh new mobile app.
To be precise, mobile apps besides helping the travel businesses and hoteliers stay in continuous communication can actually do a lot in securing the place of the brand in customer memory by providing an engaging user experience. From real-time location-aware and context-aware notifications to using immersive 360-degree viewing of hotel accommodations, mobile apps can bring the actual travel experience to life for the customers booking remotely. Moreover, apps, while booking facilities can utilize the device features for a streamlined booking experience, unlike the websites.
Conclusion
The misconceptions and myths among businesses really run galore when it comes to hotel and travel booking apps. But as many small and local travel and hospitality businesses are constantly creating new benchmarks with innovative apps and app-based business conversion strategies, in the time to come more travel and hotel businesses will join in.
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