WHICH FEATURES ARE ESSENTIAL TO PROVIDE IN TRAVEL SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS?

The travel and hospitality industry is a vast field brimming with opportunities and wealth. According to Statista, its annual economic impact is approximately 6.5 trillion dollars. Global international tourism revenue is estimated to be USD 1.34 trillion. Integrating technologies can attract more customers, also enhance your customer experience when using your services. But before building an app, did you know what is the basic function that travel software solutions provide?

1. NAVIGATION AND MAP INTEGRATION

Traveling and geography are inextricably linked. Maps are an essential feature in all travel software solutions. Users should have access to detailed maps that are simple to use, comprehend, and navigate. The maps must include as much pertinent and detailed information as possible.

Figure 1. Map integration is a must-have feature of every travel software

There are numerous geolocation solutions available for this purpose. There is, of course, the well-known Google Maps API, but it is not the only one. OpenLayers, TomTom, Mapbox, HERE, and Mapfit are some alternatives worth considering.

These options, however, will not provide you with all of the information you require. Most likely, a clever combination of different APIs will be required. Google, for example, has a Hotel API. It provides detailed information about hotels in the chosen region. What technology stack is required in your case will be determined by the technical characteristics of your app’s geolocation, map integration, and navigation functionality.

2. EASILY TO PLAN A TRIP

One of the primary reasons people use travel apps is to plan their vacations. Travel software solutions create apps with features that allow users to select different destinations, select transportation to get to those destinations, book hotels, and so on.

This travel software solution must be integrated with all of the other features, such as maps and those described below. Google Trips, TripCase, TripHobo, and Roadtrippers are some of the most popular trip-planning apps.

The app requires extremely flexible integration, so travel software solutions make a function to let the user can research destinations and activities, make reservations by connecting their email, and map out a daily itinerary with start/end times. You can also include notes and links throughout.

Furthermore, everything is saved offline so that users can access their itinerary while traveling abroad. It calculates the time and distance between locations and exports them to Google Maps for road trips (and there are no limits to the number of stops you can make on a trip!).

3. SMOOTH AND RELIABLE BOOKING AND RESERVATION

Many tourists prefer to plan their own hotels, flights, and activities. They can reserve and pay for services using online travel booking software via a website or mobile application. The advantages for both enterprises and customers include, but are not limited to:

• Enhancements to the booking procedure.
• Operations have been optimized, and administrative processes have been reduced.
• Data centralization.
• Customers will have more freedom, for example.

Travel apps can be used to book flights, hotels, tours, and a variety of other travel-related products and services. As a result, travel apps have evolved into tourist marketplaces. This functionality would necessitate the use of several different technologies and APIs, including Arzoo, Booking, and Orbitz. These are the most commonly used hotel booking APIs.

Skyscanner, Google Flights, and SmartFlyer are the best options for purchasing plane tickets. It’s worth repeating that more than simply adding significant features is a requirement for travel software solutions. Each of them must be properly configured and integrated with the others. Booking with maps, for example, or trip planning with maps, and so on.

4. YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN WRITE REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON YOUR PLATFORM

Whether you are developing a mobile app for a travel agency or a travel aggregator, providing users with honest reviews and recommendations is a must-have feature for any travel app. Travel software solutions should allow users to leave reviews for restaurants, cafes, hotels, and other establishments.

Figure 2. A good and detailed review will attract potential customers like a marketing channel

It’s also a good idea to load real reviews using a third-party service. In addition, an algorithm that provides users with relevant recommendations based on their preferences should be developed.

Consumer feedback boosts customer trust in your brand. When you enable consumers to express their thoughts about your company or its products and services, you allow future buyers to see the proof for themselves rather than expecting them to take a leap of faith and think your product will accomplish what the company claims it would.

5. INTEGRATED TRANSPORTATION

Integrated transportation services are an essential feature in travel software solutions. They provide users with easy and convenient access to different modes of transportation for their travel needs.

When a traveler arrives at his or her destination, finding convenient transportation is critical. As a result, it is critical to provide users with detailed and up-to-date information about available modes of transportation, schedules, pricing, and other critical details. The ability to book taxis, train tickets, and other services would be extremely beneficial.

6. RELIABLE WEATHER FORECASTING

Weather forecasting is the prediction of the weather using physics principles supplemented by a variety of statistical and empirical techniques. Weather forecasting includes predictions of changes on Earth’s surface caused by atmospheric conditions, in addition to predictions of atmospheric phenomena themselves.

The weather is an important consideration in a traveler’s decision-making process. As a result, users will appreciate it if travel software solutions provide accurate weather forecasts. There are numerous good APIs available for this purpose. Forecast.io, AccuWeather, OpenWeatherMap, and YahooWeather are among the most well-known.

Figure 3. Integrate weather forecast into the travel app will make the trip of your customer become more convenience

A weather API is an Application Programming Interface that enables weather data to be accessed through scripts and code. Good weather APIs provide both historical and forecast weather data through an easy-to-use, well-defined programming interface. The best APIs include dozens of weather measures, near-real-time current conditions reporting, and decades of historical weather data from around the world. In an ideal world, both historical and forecast lookups would be combined into a single API entry point, with the addition of an ultra-long-term forecast based on climate statistics. This single entry point allows anyone writing a script, developing an app, or loading a database to gain instant access to the exact weather data they require from a global database containing hundreds of millions of records.

7. EMERGENCY SERVICES

Several unforeseen events may arise during a travel. We certainly hope that we will never need to dial an emergency number or locate a nearby hospital, especially while traveling in a strange country. Nonetheless, life can take unexpected twists, so travelers should be prepared for any crises.

This feature has the potential to save lives. You may show real emergency numbers or instructions to a pharmacy, clinic, or police station by adding a location-based emergency services functionality.

Such a feature will provide consumers with a sense of security, and you will send a clear message that their safety is your top concern. Emergency services are an essential feature in any travel software solution. They provide users with the necessary assistance in case of emergencies and unexpected situations.

When a traveler is in a foreign country, he or she may become disoriented or become involved in an emergency. Emergencies can turn tragic if he or she does not speak the local language and is unfamiliar with the area.

8. TRANSLATION CAPABILITIES WITHIN THE APP

The globe is more accessible to travelers than ever before. As a result, international travel has become a global trend that is continually growing. Making excursions to distant nations, on the other hand, comes with one substantial barrier: a foreign or regional language.

Such an issue may result in some uncomfortable circumstances, particularly when traveling overseas to nations where the native English competence level is low. That is why including an in-app language translator in your digital product is critical, as it helps travelers to deal with stressful and unpredictable situations. Yet it turns out that 46% of individuals avoid visiting countries where solely a foreign language is spoken.

In this case, AI may provide further assistance through voice recognition or computer vision technologies. You will be able to develop visual translation by processing photos or videos. Travelers scan text using it, and the translation displays immediately on the app.

9. NOTIFICATIONS

This is especially important for mobile applications to assist with certain travel issues. Your app should be able to remind the user about upcoming events, such as flights or excursions.

Not only that, notifying customers of last-minute deals, coupons, and special offers is an effective way to add another touchpoint to your marketing funnel. Travel software solutions can see those push notifications are a complementary marketing channel through which you can provide additional, valuable information about your brand. Furthermore, by allowing you to include logos in messages, mobile app push notifications provide strong recognition. Users are more likely to remember timely push notifications, increasing your brand’s essential value.

In the travel and hospitality industries, real-time communication is essential. Whether your app specializes in reservations, hospitality, transportation, flights, tours, or another aspect of the travel experience, your clients not only benefit from, but also expect, regular information on the elements affecting their trip plans.

When customers wait to complete their vacation arrangements, you risk losing them. There’s a reason why the travel business has one of the highest abandonment rates of any vertical.

Having said that, your travel or hospitality app can profit from sending a mix of transactional and marketing messages to your users. These messages enable you to provide a less stressful and more smooth integrated digital and physical travel experience, which will undoubtedly keep consumers returning the next time they need to make plans.

10. EASY PAYMENT METHOD

Travel agents are frequently required to compile invoices and manage payments for several clients at the same time. A solution for travel enterprises must have functionality for invoicing and invoice administration, sales commission calculation, and other particular requirements.

The majority of reservation tools include some type of finance management. At the very least, there must be an online payment processing capability that accepts all major credit cards and provides invoices and receipts. If this is not the case, specialist software integration is necessary. For example, Online Invoices, which services businesses of all sizes, provides innovative capabilities to travel organizations. Companies may email invoices to clients and partners and accept payment through credit card, PayPal, Stripe, or bank transfer, as well as analyze data to determine the most popular hotels and tourist destinations.

One of the most significant benefits for users is the simplification of transactions and payment methods. Travel apps, which require less paperwork, have eliminated the old processes. Mobile transactions are convenient and practical because they send receipts to your customer’s mailing address, which they cannot lose. You may not even be required to carry a hard receipt if you have one stored in your phone.

Figure 4. Mobile payment integrated to travel software will make your customer less stressed while traveling

None of this would be possible if online transactions did not advance as much as they have. Users can now pay for a trip entirely with cards, thanks to the advantage of technologies that travel software solutions are embedded in, eliminating the need to carry any cash at all.

SUMMARY

The list above highlights the top features that may improve travelers’ user experience and make them desire to use your app on every voyage. But, keep in mind that the ultimate decision of your feature set should be dictated by your app’s purpose and commercial goals. So go with what works best for you!

The ambition of almost travel software solutions is to create platforms for travel and tourism in the form of mobile apps where people can come to look up locations, book hotels, and check the weather forecast all under one roof. Furthermore, the goal of travel apps is to provide smooth customer experiences because customer satisfaction is critical; it can make or break a business.

Source: Internet

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