As a travel agency, bringing innovation to your services takes the traveling experience to a whole new level. By giving your clients custom travel planning apps, you make it easy for travelers to know where they are going and what to expect at the push of a button. Travel apps will help grow your business too; incorporating these apps into your business is a win for everyone.
Key Takeaways:
- Travel apps are a convenient and comfortable way for clients to manage their trips.
- There are several features that will make a travel app successful, but customization for specific travel services is the most effective.
- Travel agencies can grow their revenue, increase client satisfaction and reduce manual workloads with a travel planning app.
Customizations are the key to creating a travel planning app that delivers benefits to both you and your clients. Watkyn has a team of dedicated developers ready to match your agency’s needs to an efficient, scalable app for travel planning, whether through Quickbase support or other services.
The Benefits of Travel Planning Apps
Travel is a trillion-dollar industry around the globe, with over one billion travel app users in the market. In addition to helping you tap into such a big market, an app enhances the client experience while reducing the workload on your agency.
An app can handle a lot of the questions your team may field or automate many of their tasks. Freeing up your agents to work on other value-based projects improves productivity and agency morale. Travel apps can have a huge return on investment as they directly address leading consumer needs.
The Importance of Customized Features
While there are plenty of mass-marketed, prepackaged planning software programs with companion apps on the market, there are too many variables in the travel industry to settle for something that isn’t customized.
When it comes to a planning app that delivers the most benefits for your agency, these are some of the features to consider.
Intelligent Booking Platform
When travelers are in the early stages of planning a trip, they are hungry for lots of information related to pricing and availability. You can eliminate their need to move from website to website or make multiple phone calls to find out things such as:
- Price comparisons across different dates
- Current or upcoming discounts
- Currency rates
- General booking summaries
An intelligent booking platform streamlines clients’ experiences and puts them in control of their travel plans.
In-App Booking Options
Travel planning apps typically help users conveniently book their primary means of travel, but adding entertainment, dining or local transportation options expands your services. Whether you contract directly with a particular company or have links to trusted rideshare services, giving your clients an all-in-one app increases your value as a travel agency.
SEO-Driven Information
Travelers need information beyond the initial planning stages of lodging or transportation. Many do additional research on their destination looking for the most recommended dining options, tours, or other entertainment. When you can incorporate SEO, you create an optimized user experience with greater efficiency in planning a vacation.
When clients use your app to browse according to keywords or phrases, you not only create an SEO guide that points users in the right direction but you get a marketing boost as well when you connect your SEO strategy to your app. You can use data gathered through your travel planning app to expand what you offer or address client needs more precisely.
Location-Based Services
Once travelers arrive at their destination, your app can give them access to important information about their location, such as directions to a recommended hotel, club, or dining venue. You can also have accurate, real-time weather forecasts or current events for the location.
People can use geolocation services to travel safely while in an unfamiliar destination. Such services can help them plan what to pack or how to entertain themselves when in town. Safety alerts, humidity rates, and health warnings are just a few of the ways you could customize a travel app with location-based services.
The Business Benefits of a Travel Planning App
A mobile or online planning app that benefits clients should be a companion to a larger software benefitting the daily operations of a business. If you want to experience the advantages of a custom app, your customizations should align with your agency’s goals.
Real-Time Online Bookings
When you use a booking solution, your customers get the benefits of real-time information on available travel dates or other information. Without this platform, your team has the responsibility of manually answering phone calls or responding to emails. This is incredibly time-consuming and can slow down productivity.
Customers who don’t need to wait for your team to respond and can utilize real-time bookings will make decisions about their travel more quickly. This creates higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty towards your company.
Automated Booking Management
Rather than manually following up with reservation confirmations, payment reminders, cancellation policies, or document reviews, a booking system can automate these needs. Send out automated emails to correspond with important deadlines or the customer’s itinerary.
Custom apps address the issues your agency handles the most, streamlining your workflow and the processes that need the most attention. Automation saves your company time and money, two things every business could use more of.
Reduced Errors and Losses
Small errors can add up to big, costly mistakes. By using a travel planning app, you can reduce the errors that often result from manually controlling each aspect of the booking process. Your platform should offer secure services for payments and account management and support your ability to communicate with clients through a chat or contact feature.
Reducing errors can save you on cancellations or rescheduling. It saves paperwork and employee time. It also preserves the high opinion your customers have of your services.
The Options for Developing a Travel Planning App
Give your travel agency a productivity boost by developing custom apps to support your goals and processes. Watkyn’s team of developers can customize travel planning apps to improve your workflow while enhancing the customer experience. Contact us to find out more.
