The explosive growth in the popularity of smartphones has long been nothing new, but what is remarkable is that the rate of growth has not slowed down for a second. Technology is reaching new territories, age groups, and fields of application, and it’s even leading to the gradual displacement of the PC. Of course, this trend could not pass by the travel industry. About 70% of tourists worldwide rely primarily on their smartphones when traveling.
This is enormous proof that today smartphones and tablets are the primary tools for choosing resorts, planning trips, and paying for air tickets and hotels. That is why travel companies need to expand the set of services and adapt it to users’ particular needs. For example, it has become an essential market requirement to have applications designed for customer service. In this article, we want to break down the most trending areas to consider if you will develop your travel app. Let’s get started!
Trends in tourist mobile app development
Our team has analyzed various IT projects in the travel industry and could highlight the following solutions widely used by the significant players in the tourist market:
- Gamification – creating full-fledged gameplay elements in the app makes it more competitive and attractive in users’ eyes. All people love games.
- Betting on maximum functionality – users use mobile apps in their daily lives exceptionally often. If you can meet as many of their needs as possible with a utility, they will be satisfied and recommend your program to their mates.
- Creating complete meta-villages or augmenting existing ones with AR – virtual reality and fictional worlds help you immerse yourself in the tourist experience more profoundly. This will bring a considerable share of pleasure to your users, who will want to return to such apps repeatedly.
Tourist
- Personalized travel guides – if you emphasize making customized recommendations to your customers on a travel trip, they’ll love it.
- Introducing health and wellness practices – it’s standard that you need to go to a hospital or wellness center while on vacation. If you add locations of such services to your app, your customers will appreciate it.
- Creating positive content – content-based platforms prioritize positive interactions with users. Many people turn to alternatives to mitigate the impact of negative news, so if you can incorporate a lot of helpful information and positive communication, your customers will probably approve of this approach.
But we want to focus on one trend in particular.
5G integration
5G is the latest buzzword in today’s world. Smartphone manufacturers have started releasing devices that support this type of communication. But why is it so appealing in the first place? For example, its breakneck download speeds. And this is relevant – at least in the travel industry. The 5G response time is less than one millisecond. It seems instantaneous compared to human response time, which averages between 130 and 350 milliseconds.
In addition, uncrewed vehicles connected to augmented and virtual reality, the Internet, and other high-tech fields also benefit significantly from this technology. They get incredibly low latency and connectivity efficiency. Why are we focusing so much on this? Because for example, drones are already actively used in tourism, and this approach is a guarantee that you can attract customers with your app.