People select destinations, places to eat, sleep, view, recommended routes or different city events by using app travel guides. Exploring booklets, navigating maps, checking weather reports and getting loads of other useful tools and info, these are all possible thanks to mobile applications and mobile tourism app development.
City guide apps keep cropping up everywhere. Popular resorts, airlines and travel companies become obsessed with the idea of having mobile travel guides. It’s a great way to advertise hotels, tell people about sightseeing in the city or outline events that are going to take place. If you run a small tourism agency, then you can inform your clients about new travel plans and destinations for vacation, or provide information about flight and city’s tours available. Plus, such apps may provide entrepreneurs with promotional add-ons and electronic commerce.
These are just a few reasons why your small business needs to develop a trip mobile application. Now, let’s take a look at general tips of travel mobile app development and try answer the question “how to build a mobile travel app?”.
Development of city guide app
Travel app development is not nearly as hard as it used to be due to a large quantity of development tools, devices, features and so many resources we have available to us nowadays. Accordingly, you can create an app for the Android, iOS or any other platform you like, regardless of how complex it could be.
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At the same time, do not hope to get a great leading app that won’t have any bugs or unwanted behavior on the very first stage of developing. Additionally, do not even expect that building your app is a surprisingly easy task to do. It will require spending huge amount of your thoughts, time, investments and efforts to develop a really good product. You need to take into account all the factors and fully consider these steps to understand how to create a mobile app for startup.
Programming language
If you are determined to build an app for the most well-known platforms at the business market-place, whether it’s iPhone or Android, here’s something to consider:
- Java – the most frequently used coding language. Around nine million developers use this universal language to develop apps. Well, you can find a lot of material to get acquainted with the language. Android applies Java as the data basis.
- Swift – a programming language for iOS that was created by Apple to take place of Objective C. Swift is similar to C#. Hence, this makes Swift a light, comfortable and powerful that can be easily integrated into your development workflow.
That’s the same for every coding language to have its pros and cons. You may spend some more time and energy learning more about the programming language to know if it is able to meet your specific requests.
Prepare a good plan from the start
No matter what you’re facing, it’s good to stick to a plan. It is significant to begin with common ideas when you’re making a plan for the primary prototype layout. You just have to keep with the main logic and don’t think about how you will overcome one problem or how you will be unable to deal with another problem, and what to do about it. It is a nice idea to write a list of actions you can accomplish during the project. And after, you should care about app design, interface and best custom app services.
Remember, if you want to implement some advanced features, it’s better to keep with the most important functions. At the beginning, the less features your application will have, the simpler it will be to build up an app.
And after that, you can draw a sketch and consider implementation of more complex UI and UX design of your mobile app. Keep in mind and don’t forget to protect your intellectual property while outsourcing your app development project. As well, users have to be sure that their data and personal information are protected against latest vulnerabilities.
Tips to build a successful guide app
To build a high-quality app, you need to give users substantial information on attractions, wining and dining, shopping, events, hotels, public transport, weather and more. It turns out, these are all possible with a large set of initial tools and features.
Help users to focus on important information: make sure you have up-to-date and vivid content ready for tourists. Outbreak updates on breathtaking destinations will help you get attention from app users and their connections.
Provide transport tips: Give access to the city’s public transport and let users purchase airlines or parking tickets easily from within the app.
Maps: If you are guiding travelers with certain locations, placing a map in your app is not the worst idea. Probably, you have alternatives available in this case, like applying Google Maps. But let’s be honest, each city guide app needs a navigation tool. Sure, it will cost you to add a geolocation feature, but users will appreciate it.
Show locations to go: help users with the location, as there are hundreds of spectacular places in this world. Come up with a unique recommendations list what to visit in the city. And make sure that the shortlisted locations are not only attractive for travelers but also secure.
Booking process: if you are creating a travel app, you should give your users the possibility to book the hotel, airfare with ease. Unfortunately, these are extra features that can be provided with the help of travel app services. Actually, you can give your users links that redirect to the websites where they can receive deals on flight tickets or tours, or room bookings. For example, Airbnb and Booking are amazing sites for those who aspire to rent rooms and meet new friends, even enjoy discounted price. Here are other cool services to make travel plans with:
- Evernote;
- Skyscanner;
- Kayak;
- Google Now;
- TravelSafe;
- Dark Sky;
- Travel Ticker.
True reviews and comments: fake reviews are really bad. Inspire tourists to share their comments and experience to let other travelers know about it. Real reviews and recommendations are an in-depth amazing trick for a practice. So, keep in mind that no fake reviews have to be added to your website.
Additional tools: just make sure, you have notifications and access to information on ATMs, supermarkets, hospitals, pharmacies, currency exchange, and more. Additional tools are always a good idea.
Weather forecast: you may provide users with a tool to tell the upcoming weather and temperature, help them to check current atmospheric pressure or show an awesome shot of a sunset or cloud formations.
MANAGING THE ACTIVITY
Having a plan for a project and the general idea, now you may hire the actual developers. You will need a specific period of time to learn the possibilities that will help you create an app that meets your prospects. Leastways, a couple of months are necessary to build the basic version with limited features.
As a successful product, the functioning prototype should show how your general concept works and if everything you have chosen is good enough for accomplishing the task. After you can start adding new functions and check which features work great and which doesn’t. It is always nice to keep in mind that an app development begins from something elementary, simple and then goes to complex.
DEVELOPMENT COSTS
E-commerce can help greatly increase your sales. Often, new software solutions help to attract new users. A business that presents goods and services online needs an e-commerce apps to facilitate the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services.
Above all app development, we also have to mention about expenses you will face. An app may cost a lot even without giving you any start advantages, which is a waste of your money, time and energy. To make sure you’re not making all these mistakes, it’s better to estimate all your possibilities, analyze the marketplace in order to avoid stressful situations. Study the methods of your competitors and develop a strategy. If you are newbie to a mobile development, then probably your budget is limited and every dollar must be spent wisely.
So how much does it cost again? Our experienced travel app development company can help you clarify your ideas and help to figure out the cost to develop a travel app. Hire travel app developers and dedicated Android and iOS application programmers from Lunapps for custom services. If it sounds thrilling and you still have any questions, consider checking our portfolio and contact us. Our outsourcing company has a wide experience in mobile development and we are able to deliver results-driven solutions for companies ranging from startups and small business to corporate clients. If you want to profit then we offer trip app developers for hire.