The travel industry is a thriving industry making itself the world's largest and fastest-growing sector worldwide. Due to the improved living standards and digital inclusion, the traditional travel industry has experienced a revitalized upgradation. Since, commencement of smartphones and applications, the travel industry has leveraged a plethora of benefits. A diverse range of mobile apps helping travelers book hotels & cabs, easy payment solutions, and cancellation, people are sailing their vacations to several traveling locations spending more on traveling expenses & eliminating the past-facing hurdles in traveling activities.
Talking about worth of travel & tourism industry:
The global tourism industry has contributed $4.67 trillion till now. Around 415 million tourists have arrived at several tourist destinations worldwide, where they spend $2.37 Trillion in leisure activities (Statista).
Hassles that traditional travel industry has experienced:
We have come up so far from the traditional traveling industry. But, it is worth understanding what the traditional travel industry used to be before the advent of mobile apps. Let us look over the travel industry's problems before everything transformed into and over mobile apps.
- No instant online booking, payments, and refunds: Books in the traditional traveling industry were not instant since users had to either mail, call or approach the agencies. The payment methods involved more physical money acceptance, and the scenario of refunds took a long time to reach back to its source.
- Unavailability of travel agencies on the online platforms: Currently, there are 73,249 travel agencies in the USA, and not all of them are online, making it tough for the customers to choose travel agencies from online platforms. Back then, only a few companies were hooked to online platforms, and it was not easy to fetch out contact details of the travel agencies.
- Non-flexible travel planning: Travelerslike to plan their trips before they actually sail on them. Due to the unavailability of the travel apps assisting them in planning, they have to make more efforts to plan their trip. Either they would discuss with someone who has been to the traveling locations or explore it by themselves.
- Not able to extend stays without properphysical process: Sometimes, travelers have to extend their stays. Theyagain have to make contacts through emails or phone calls to increase theirstay time, making it inconvenient for them from remote places.
- No virtual experience before physicallyexploring destinations: Without proper technologies, travelers were notable to enjoy their preferred destination in advance prior to physically exploring it.
- Dependency on taxi drivers without knowing thenew routes: Before the inclusion of travel apps, travelers had to faceproblems when traveling new routes. Without proper assistance, they had totrust taxi drivers who were strangers to them. No online cab bookings apps like uber and ola were available, and google maps were also not mature enough.
- Lack of instant and convenient communication: For everycommunication, travelers have to come in touch with their travel agenciesthrough emails or phone calls, making it complex customer support from agencies.
But, the advent ofmobile apps solved travel industry problems. Look at how travel apps havechanged the above problems.
How have mobile apps solved travel industryproblems?
With the most powerfuldevice in hands, people can make their own travel arrangements portable throughuser-friendly & feature-loaded mobile apps.
- Online travel agencies: When travelagencies register itself to travel & tourism mobile apps, they are alwaysavailable in the user's pockets. With a few taps, users can approach travel agencies and fetch complete details about it.
- Fast remote bookings: With the integrationof payment gateways in mobile apps, users can book hotels and make paymentsinstantly with instant refunds in case they cancel the bookings. Travelers can also increase their stays just by a few taps on their smartphones, making it highly convenient for them to enjoy their trips.
- Flexible travel planning: Mobile appscan assist travelers in planning their trips. Users can type their destinationand fetch an estimated budget for a trip without actually physically exploring the trip.
- Immersing in the travel world withoutphysically exploring it: With the metaverse technologies like VR andAR, users can remotely experience the feel of destinations. Travelers canexplore their preferred place virtually before exploring it in reality to make better traveling decisions.
- All the routes in the pocket: Apps likegoogle maps make it possible to provide information about every route in theworld. Travelers don't have to rely on taxi drivers or locales to know the routes. They can book taxis and monitor the route it takes towards their destination.
- 24X5 instant customer support: Through mobileapps, travel agencies can provide 24x7 customer support to travelers, and theycan fire their query, and a specialist can instantly solve it remotely without involving any telephonic calls or emailing.
Verdict
The travel industry faces a number of issues when we compare it to the digitized world. Since mobile apps are user-friendly and are always available to the users, they increase convenience and flexibility for the traveler. Quick bookings, payments, refunds, travel plannings, and customer support are a few solutions that mobile apps provide to the travel industry. So, why wait? Approach travel app development agencies and contribute to solving the travel industry problems.
