How to Make a Booking App & Website: Step-by-Step Process, Features, & Tips
Do you know how to reign supreme in the world of service or goods provision? If you have an efficient booking app, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
This detailed guide walks you through all of the essential points.
Reasons to Invest in the Development of Booking Apps
After the success of Booking.com and Airbnb, hotel reservation websites and hotel booking apps doubled their profits. Investors are in a rush to sink money into the sector, and start-ups are pushing for information on how to create an app that beats competitors.
Statistics also state that the eTravel market grows by 7.5% every year. This includes only websites and applications for hotels and transportation.
One thing is clear: This is a good prognosis for everyone that thinks they may need to create a booking website or app.
A website reservation system or a mobile booking app is a must-have for most industries and the benefits are promising:
- User-centricity & convenience
- Connectivity with clients
- Marketing utilization
- Brand recognition
- Multiple revenue streams
Our team knows all the ins-and-outs to create a booking solution and bring it to a new level. One of our ongoing projects is GoPuff — an on-demand delivery service and online booking system operating in 20 US states.
Types & Examples of Booking Apps
On-Demand Booking Apps
On-demand booking apps are used when a customer has an immediate need for certain services (e.g a taxi, delivery or cleaning), makes an order, and tracks the delivery online.
- Taxi services (Uber)
- Delivery services (Landtran)
- Home services (Sears)
- Cleaning services (Cleanly)
In-Advance Booking Apps
In-advance booking apps help users book appointments and services using calendars.
- Food and beverages (Uber Eats)
- Beauty services (StyleSeat)
- Hotel booking engines (TripAdvisor)
- Flight booking engines (SkyScanner)
- Doctor booking (Zocdoc)
- Restaurant booking (Yelp)
- Event booking (Cvent)
- Appointment app (Square)
How to Create an Online Booking System: Important Considerations
The creation of an online booking system can be a daunting undertaking. Go through the following 6-step process to brush up on some crucial aspects:
- Define your UPS
2. Ensure data security
3. Integration with third-party services
With regard to a hotel booking app, here is a list of APIs you may use:
- Zodomus — hotel listing API to manage room availability
- Google Places API — outlines places to visit in the vicinity.
- Uber API — allows clients to book transportation easily
- OpenWeatherMap API — tool that is inevitable when it comes to vacation planning
4. Opt for native app development
5. Create a booking website too
When considering whether to create a booking website, think of the benefits you can get, namely:
- additional representation of the brand
- application of SEO and digital marketing practices for promotional strategies
- insight into user behavior and broad data collection for company strategies
- wider audience outreach, including options for segmentation, personalization, cross- and up-selling
- build-up of customer base via browser searches
Further, the article explains key insight into building a booking website with little fuss and lays out prospects for further marketing utilization.
Tech Aspects to Create a Booking App
By this time, you should already have an idea what kind of online reservation system you need.
Key Features to Create a Booking App
Most people overlook key features and instead tend to elaborate on advanced ones. However, it is recommended to set a system basis from features, namely:
- User registration & profile
- Search
- Booking process & details screens
- Payment
- Review & rating
- Booking cancelation policy
- Push notifications
If the core features are enough for this stage of your business development, you may go ahead with the budget planning right away.
Advanced Functionality to Create a Booking App
In this section, you will learn about how to build a booking project that stands out from the crowd.
- Dynamic pricing
- Suggestion engine
- Availability forecasting
- Visual media integration
- Multi-language & global currency support
- In-app messenger
All in all, any app functionality, simple or advanced, should be in line with customer expectations.
Why and How to Build a Booking Website
The reason you should create a booking website is simple: due to functionality, a booking website gives brighter features, in-depth information, and better possibilities for analytics.
The next phase is hiring a professional team that knows how to create a booking website in a fast and effective way. Your collaboration with developers will likely follow the following steps:
- Define user needs and expectations
- Develop product backlog listing website functionality
- Create UI/UX website design following the best practices
- Implementation of the corresponding functionality
- Post-launch support and maintenance
There are points where you will have to step in as well:
- eliminate any communication issues with your software vendor
- provide timely feedback during all stages within the project development lifecycle
- put extra effort into developing an effective marketing strategy to shape a website’s functionality according to future advertising needs
Bottom Line
The development of a booking system is a complicated process that requires multiple details. Once you decide to create a booking website or app, it is necessary to undertake the following 12 step procedure:
1: Analyze the industry
2: Study your competitors
3: Choose the type of booking app you want to develop
4: Identify USPs and critical values
5. Define your business goals and expectations
6: Hire a capable vendor for booking app development
7: Plan the functionality for your booking system
8: Create UX/UX design
9: Get significantly involved in the app development process
10: Plan and launch a marketing strategy
11: Test, deploy, and launch the booking app
12: Connect with app users, collect feedback, and plan further improvements
In conclusion, as you may have already figured out, your two keys to success are a professional development team and flawless communication.
This is a summary of an article. Check out more details and recommendations for developing a booking app inside the complete article on the MLSDev blog.
