Last Updated on June 13, 2022

People love to travel, and that’s why the travel industry happens to be among the top revenue-generating industries. And nowadays, every travel business is eagerly cashing on the trend of travel apps. They offer amazing features such as quick hotel booking, flight booking, a tour guide, easy online payments, and much more. After all, more is needed than just a mobile website in the tech-savvy world we live in. 

As per many consumer types of research, the trend for mobile transactions is constantly rising in the travel industry. Thus, to get the attention of the present mobile generation and keep them engaged, a mobile app is the ‘answer.’

As one considers creating a travel app, the first dilemma they usually face is what type of app to create. And here, the important thing to keep in mind is to create an app that will be useful for the target customer base. After all, if the app is not about what people need, they will not be interested. However, if the app offers just what they want, the results will be great. It will improve consumer loyalty and revenues and allow you to engage new clients with your business. 

So, in this blog, we have offered a variety of ideas for mobile apps for the travel industry. You can pick the concept that best suits your business and provide your audience with a useful and functional app accordingly. 

However, before we start with the app ideas, let’s take a look at the market studies.

Market Research & Statistics Regarding Travel Mobile Apps

The recent research study by eMarketer states that the travel-based mobile apps are in the category of seventh downloadable apps, and sixty percent of smartphone users prefer to use travel apps to plan their leisure tours. 

Expected Development Of Travel Industry

Here are the statistics & figures

As per the Statista report, in 2016, the travel & tourism industry valued more than 7.6 trillion U.S. dollars. Next, in 2017, the travel & tourism industry was valued at $1.6 trillion along with bookings.  The tourism sector is experiencing steady growth almost every year all across the world. It is expected that the development of this industry will be reaching 1.8 billion by 2030. It is found that Europe is receiving the most international tourist arrivals while Asia Pacific region received double the amount of second largest tourist region.  

Top Mobile App Ideas To Enter In The Travel Industry

To start with, we will focus on the Mobile Apps for finding travel destinations:

Niche Experience Travelling App

Niche Experience Travelling App

This can be a kind of traveling app that serves a niche audience like a luxury-loving audience, or people looking to create an experience, or it can even be people looking for Home-Stay, like Airbnb. This app is developed to keep niche audiences in mind and serve them with the specifics they desire. 

Hotel Booking Mobile App

This can be a travel app that allows users to find and book their accommodations while on a trip. This way, the app users will have access to accommodation solutions as per the place they are traveling. This option can work great as the user makes an unexpected travel or requires making an unexpected halt on the way. With the app’s help, even when the user is traveling, s/he can look for accommodation, such as a hotel room, couch-surfing, or homestay, whatever is desired. This app can be quite convenient for the users as it provides them with wide-ranging options, and users can pick the property best matching their needs. Users can look for hotels directly from the app and use filters, such as reviews, facilities, pricing, to find a place as per their choice. This app serves both the travel business and the users very well. 

Flight Booking App Development

This app allows its users to find flights to the location they want to travel to. The app can be useful in finding the upcoming flights to that location, seat availability, flight fare (so that the users can compare it with other flight companies). The app also allows tracking flights on a phone map, by number and airport or route. Users can check for conditions like weather, current delays, check-in, boarding, take-off, and landing time. The app offers the necessary information. Here the app can be made available via Android, iPhone, Apple Watch, and web.

Bus Ticket Booking Mobile App

Bus Ticket Booking Mobile App

Same as Flight Booking, there can be apps for Bus Ticket booking. Many destinations are easily covered via bus. Some people even have flight phobia, so for these reasons, there can be a bus-ticket booking app that allows users to find the available buses to their destination quickly, ticket availability, boarding time, departure time, preferable departure station, and a lot more helpful information an app can offer. Nowadays, people do not prefer making a physical visit to the bus stations to book their tickets as mobile apps allow easy booking within minutes. Thus, this again can be a valuable app idea for the travel business. 

Audio Tour Mobile App

Audio Tour Mobile App

This is more like having an audio guide in your pocket, where you have a personal tour guide-like experience wherever you go. The app tells about the most interesting attractions in the city, like museums, gardens, cafes, restaurants, etc. And it works for many cities in the world. Several such apps are present in the app market, but it is all about offering something unique than the other to take you to the top. The app works as an audio guide for planning a sightseeing trip or a museum visit. All that is needed is to turn on the GPS geolocation and pick from the dozens of audio tours available as per the location the user is visiting. Each tour is packed with checkpoints, maps, photo galleries, high-quality audio & videos, etc. Users can even be offered the option to download the tours in advance as they can use the maps & content even when offline. This is not just to avoid the roaming costs but also to avoid getting lost during sightseeing. 

Local Guide Finder Mobile App

Local Guide Finder Mobile App

Often, travelers face issues finding the right travel guide for their trip, and mostly they don’t know where to look. In such situations, the Local Guide Finder mobile apps come around as very helpful. These apps are useful to connect travelers the local tour guides. Essentially, the app serves as a marketplace for customizable private tours. Local guides are associated with the app to provide personal tours tailored to the user’s needs. 

Kids Friendly Place Finder App

Kids Friendly Place Finder App

When traveling with kids, people like to be fully prepared to take care of their kids’ comforters. An app can be great as families would love to have easy access to information like kids-friendly stores, cafes, restaurants, amusement parks, entertainment hubs, etc. They pick the places to visit accordingly and even pick the kid-friendly restaurants. This helps them spend time stress-free while traveling. 

City Tour Guide Mobile App

City Tour Guide Mobile App

It is a good idea to offer a mobile app that offers a lot of useful, interactive, and informative features to the users to be a useful companion while traveling to a city. After all, today, mobile users like the idea of having easy information using their smartphones. Hence, with a City Tour Guide concept, your app will gain the attention of the audience and serve them well. It will be great for customer satisfaction and to increase the revenues. These apps allow travelers to quickly move around an unfamiliar city without the fear of getting lost through its great features like Taxi Fare calculator and Public Transport Finder. The app can also have features like calendars for shows, concerts, & other local events, as well as news updates and information regarding the malls, hospitals, banks, embassies, hotel booking options, nearby restaurants, locations on the city map, client ratings & reviews, and maps. 

Gifts & Souvenirs Guide App

Gifts & Souvenirs Guide App

When traveling to a new place, people have difficulty choosing souvenirs for friends or relatives back home. They often get lost in the mid of shelves loaded with various items, having no idea what would be apt for a specific person. For such confusing solutions, an app is an offer that allows you to easily find all the nearby gift & souvenir shops, find the best deals, read product descriptions, and compare prices.  

Washroom Finder Mobile App

Washroom Finder Mobile App

Often, traveling people have a hard time locating a washroom on the w; however, a Washroom Finder mobile app can solve this ever-present issue of travelers. The app will display all the restrooms available at a particular location or nearby. So, this makes traveling stress-free.

Gas & Charging Station Finder App

Gas & Charging Station Finder App

Many times, people face hard times finding gas & charging stations on their way, but a Gas & Charging Station Finder App will completely sort this issue. Travelers require downloading the Gas & Charging Station finder app to find the stations on their way to the destination. This is mainly helpful when someone is on the highway on their own, and especially when traveling with kids, taking care of these aspects becomes pivotal. 

you can also check our guide on “How To Develop An On-Demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App?”

So above, we discussed the travel app ideas that can be used to create a travel app, and next, it is time to discuss the best in-app ideas for the travel app. Let’s begin.

Must Read: How Much Does It Cost To Make An App?

In-App ideas for Travel App

Currency Rate Converter

Currency Rate Converter

This is a useful in-app feature for the app as it quickly converts the currency rate, thus avoiding any chance for errors or mistakes. Whenever the currency is needed to be converted, the users can simply use this feature to find the accurate rate of conversion. This feature is also able to track past and current variations in the currency rates.

Travel Itinerary Generator

Travel Itinerary Generator

This functionality allows the users to create an entire travel plan by simply adding locations easily they will visit. The feature allows the admin to add exit the sting tourist attractions or add custom land custom landmarks to plan for the users. 

In-App Language Translator

In-App Language Translator

Often, travelers are not familiar or fluent with the regional language of traveling places. For such instances, it can be a boon to have a travel app that offers a language translator feature. Having this functionality in the travel app will enhance the user experience and allow the tourists to scan texts for visual translation and translate text messages and voice. 

World Clock Time Converter

World Clock Time Converter

When traveling, the tourists often cross the time zones, and that’s why it becomes crucial to have a world clock time converter feature integrated into the app. Having this feature will be very helpful for the clients as it will clear their confusion, and they also won’t require looking for a time converting app as your travel app will offer all they need traveling long.

In-App Travel Insurance Buying

In-App Travel Insurance Buying

This is an app idea that is certain to grab many eyeballs. Everyone traveling to another country ensures travel insurance, making it easier for them to contact an insurance firm and easily file a claim. Not just this, but these travel insurance apps also offer real-time access to medical & emergency travel assistance, buying insurance while flying, hospital contact information, and extensive embassy. 

All in all, travel and tourism is a massive industry, and if you take a plunge to step in smartly, then the benefits are certainly there in abundance. It would be wise to pick the right idea and develop a smart travel app to attain great results. 

Conclusion

We discussed the most effective mobile app development ideas for the travel industry in this blog. If you want to design a mobile app for your travel business, you’ll need to employ a mobile app development company with highly competent mobile app developers who can start from scratch with your unique money-making app ideas. and will assist you in increasing the return on investment for your travel company

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Author

CTO at Emizentech and a member of the Forbes technology council, Amit Samsukha, is acknowledged by the Indian tech world as an innovator and community builder. He has a well-established vocation with 12+ years of progressive experience in the technology industry. He directs all product initiatives, worldwide sales and marketing, and business enablement. He has spearheaded the journey in the e-commerce landscape for various businesses in India and the U.S.