How Mobile Apps Have Revolutionized
the Travel & Tourism Industry

By Atman Rathod

In today’s digital world, we might forget our wallet or something else back at home but one thing that we never forget is our smartphones.

They’ve become an integral part of our everyday lives. And one industry that really seems to enjoy this fact is the travel and tourism industry.

In order to reach potential customers and new markets, travel agencies are leveraging travel mobile app development to introduce innovative travel services to the industry.

According to statista, the travel apps are the 7th most downloaded mobile app category...

What’s even more intriguing is that travel bookings through mobile apps have grown by 1700% between 2011 and 2015, rising from a mere 1 percent to a whopping 18 percent in online revenues.

Certainly, the travel and tourism industry has experienced a complete overhaul in the past recent years.

Gone are the days when travelers relied solely on travel agents to plan and book trips. Today, smartphone technology penetration has eliminated the need for travel agents.

Through certain mobile apps, travelers are independently booking hotels, flights, and what not.

In this article, we’re going to share 5 different ways in which mobile apps have impacted the travel and tourism industry...

5 Ways in Which Mobile Apps Revolutionized Travel & Tourism Industry

Mobile apps have opened up endless opportunities for travel companies to reach their potential customers. Here are the top 5 ways in which mobile apps have impacted the travel industry.

1 - A Powerful Tool to Attract Customers

Today, online promotion is a necessity if you want to enhance the reach and visibility of your travel business. For any business, in fact, marketing plays an important role. And one of the best ways to market a business nowadays is through mobile apps.

Having a mobile app for your travel business can help you reach customers from all over the world and stay connected with them 24x7. Not only that but in order to survive, you actually have to promote your business through mobile apps continuously.

For example, mobile app is the best channel to remain connected with your customers, from research to booking their trip and beyond.

2 - Apps have Become New Sales Channels

A mobile app for your travel business can create more opportunities to collaborate with airlines and hotel chains, helping you make extra money as commission.

Simply put, you can incorporate the functionality to let your customer’s book hotel rooms and air tickets right from your travel app.

For instance, suppose an airline wants to promote offers through your mobile app, you can collaborate with airline and broadcast discount code through push notifications. And once a user books tickets using the same discount code, you’ll earn a piece of revenue. The travel apps build with such features will help you to boost user acquisition.

3 - Apps Provide Easy Booking Procedure

With your travel mobile app, users can book their favorite hotels at just a few taps on their smartphones. This level of simplicity can, in turn, grow your travel business to new heights.

For instance, your customers can easily book tickets for their next destination, book sightseeing, and make hotel reservations at pocket-friendly prices.

With the blend of big data with machine learning, you can even create an intelligent travel app that can learn from your users’ past behavior and provide more custom-made offers, which would ultimately increase the number of bookings through your mobile app.

4 - Apps Eliminate the Paper Work

Since mobile technology penetration, nearly every industry has gone paperless. And the travel industry is no different.

Mobile apps can help to reduce paperwork in your travel business by safely storing all your important documents in one place. Moreover, travelers of today also prefer having a soft copy of all their bookings.

So, in your travel app, you can eliminate the need to carry original documents for your customers. This way, you not only make the journey of your customers more convenient, but the need to carry less increases the chances of becoming more loyal to your business.

5 - Apps Improve Overall Customer Experience

It’s always helpful to be able to get a glimpse of a place you’re planning to visit next. With the help of travel apps, travelers see the real-life images of travel destinations, write a review for a place they visited last or read reviews for a place they are thinking to visit next.

Simply put, travel apps can raise awareness about places travelers especially visit such as best cafes, hotels, and sightseeing venues at any given place.

In Conclusion

Mobile apps have impacted travel and tourism industry in a huge way. With an innovative travel mobile app development idea and strong mobile app development strategy, today any travel business can reach potential customers from all around the world.

I think it’s safe to say that mobile apps have created a much smoother travel experience not only for the travelers, but also for the travel companies.

About the Author:
Atman Rathod is the Co-founder at CMARIX TechnoLabs Pvt. Ltd., a leading Android app development company with 13+ years of experience. He loves to write about technology, startups, entrepreneurship and business. His creative abilities, academic track record and leadership skills made him one of the key industry influencers as well.