How to Create a Hotel Booking Website or a Mobile App

Mind Studios outlines key steps for developing a hotel booking app, covering essential features, costs, and tips to streamline operations and boost competitiveness.

Building a hotel website or app for booking has become increasingly popular in recent years. And it’s of little surprise, as it addresses a fundamental customer need: convenience. Understanding the process and challenges is essential if you're considering venturing into this lucrative space.

Mind Studios brings extensive experience in developing hotel reservation systems to the table, such 0as concierge platforms like MushRoom. This article will guide you through the key aspects of creating a hotel booking website or app, its potential challenges, and essential considerations.

Whether you’re looking to break into the market or elevate your current offerings, we’re here to help you navigate the complexities of development with proven expertise.

Highlights:

• Convenience is key: Developing a hotel booking app offers convenience and helps hoteliers stay competitive.
• Tailored solutions: Your company's goals determine the right booking solution—whether OTA, PMS, or mobile app.
• Starting with a niche: A niche app allows gradual market entry and refinement based on user feedback.

Unlocking the benefits of a custom booking app

Custom software development is necessary for a hospitality business to digitalize operations, manage unique user and customer activities, satisfy business requirements, and boost competitiveness. Building a hotel website or app can serve as a springboard for its digital expansion. The impact of online solutions is clear: according to Statista, the online revenue share of the global travel and tourism industry has increased significantly since the pandemic, growing from 63% in 2019 to 69% in 2023. This means that online platforms now account for more than two-thirds of total industry revenue.

Implementing an online solution addresses several key challenges faced by hospitality business owners, such as:

• Operational chaos: Manually managing bookings, housekeeping, and guest services can result in operational chaos, including errors, delays, and dissatisfied guests. An app may centralize and automate these processes, ensuring smooth operations and allowing your employees to focus on providing outstanding service.
• Falling behind competitors: Staying competitive is an ongoing concern. Without a strong web presence and an easy-to-use booking system, you risk falling behind competitors who provide greater convenience and superior technology. A well-designed app not only keeps you in the game, but may also provide you with a competitive advantage with features such as dynamic pricing and personalized offers.

• Low guest capacity: It is typical to be concerned about not being able to fill rooms, particularly during off-peak months. An app with real-time availability and rapid booking can increase occupancy by reaching a larger audience and providing last-minute offers.
• Reduced profitability: Profit margins can rapidly decline due to inefficient operations, excessive third-party commissions, and variable demand. An app can boost revenue per available room (RevPAR) by introducing direct booking systems and automating revenue management, reducing reliance on third-party platforms.

“When we were working on MushRoom, the client's main goal for themselves and us was to create a service that was as flexible and convenient for property owners as possible, while also considering the unique characteristics of the local Ukrainian real estate rental market.”

—Dmitry Dobritskiy, Mind Studios Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Finally, building a hotel booking app is more than just being relevant in the market; it's about optimizing your operations, increasing guest satisfaction, and ultimately earning more profit. The initial investment will pay off as you connect with more customers and provide them with a seamless booking experience they'll return to time and again.

Have an app idea and don’t know where to start? Read our article on the topic here.

Types of online hotel booking solutions

Various options exist for the hotel industry's distinct software requirements. You can combine different features from each one to create a unique solution that perfectly fits your company's needs. Let’s break down these types of hotel booking websites and apps and the advantages of each option:

Reservation module on a hotel website

Source: Dribbble

The reservation module is a complex solution that can be added to your hotel website. It should be consistent with the rest of your website's appearance and offer a wide range of features, such as safe payment for meals and beverages.

A booking module can offer you multiple benefits:

• Reduce the cost of attracting guests (you’ll be saving on commission to
• intermediaries that can reach 20% of the booking price)
• Send targeted follow-up offers to your website visitors
• Flexibly manage reservations
• Provide you with detailed statistics for analysis
• Allow clients to make round-the-clock reservations
• Enable instant booking confirmation that can enhance customer interaction with your platform

Useful for:

• Hotels: Useful for direct reservations with safe payments and reducing dependence on third-party booking services.
• Resorts: Ideal for booking rooms, spas, and restaurants on one site.
• Bed & Breakfasts: A user-friendly system like that reduces the need for human labor to manage limited rooms.
• Vacation rentals: Good for last-minute bookings, unusual guest demands, and flexible rental durations.

With a built-in reservation system, you can increase the number of clients coming from your hotel website and even make it equal to or exceed the number of external bookings.

Online travel agencies (OTAs)

OTAs are websites or mobile apps that resell hotel accommodation, transportation, package tours, and other services. How does this affect you as a hotelier?

The following are the main advantages you can get by working with OTAs:

• Boost your hotel’s visibility
• Increase the number of reservations
• Attract new customers through OTA’s user-friendly platform
• Reduce marketing expenditures since OTA handles them

Useful for:

• Hotels: Increases visibility to new markets and bookings, especially for small or independent hotels.
• Hostels: Attracts budget-conscious guests and fills dormitory-style accommodations.
• Boutique hotels: Reaches niche guests interested in unique or personalized stays without significant marketing.
• Vacation rentals: Helps reduce off-peak vacancies by attracting more short-term rental guests.

If you’re thinking of building your own OTA website or mobile app, feel free to contact us to get your customized guide on how to create a hotel booking application on time and on budget.

Property management system (PMS)

PMS is a software that helps you streamline your front- and back-office operations. By establishing this management system in your hotel website, you can simplify the process of arranging and planning the following property management functions:

• Room reservation and distribution
• Check-in and check-out
• Keep track of reservation information
• Inventory management
• Analysis of customer data
• Billing

Useful for:

• Hotels: Automating room assignments, check-ins, and guest data simplifies large-scale management.
• Resorts: Great for handling complex room allocation, visitor activities, and billing across departments.
• Guest houses: Useful for small establishments with less personnel needing a simple reservation and guest tracking system.
• Vacation rentals: Helps owners of various rental units manage bookings, guests, and cleaning schedules.

Mobile booking apps

According to a recent Mews study held among 2000 travelers and hoteliers, More than 40% of travelers prefer to check in using a hotel's website, app, or digital kiosk, and over 80% would like to stay at a hotel with a fully automated front desk or self-service app. So, it’s difficult to exaggerate the value of such a solution for your company.

“Our clients indicate that mobile apps account for nearly 70% of all bookings, so we make mobile solutions a top priority.”

—Dmitry Dobritskiy, Mind Studios Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Developing a reservation app for mobile devices will give your business the following benefits:

• Capability to engage users easier via the notification system and personalized recommendations
• More reservations since customers can book accommodations anywhere and at any time
• More feedback is possible thanks to in-app polls, reviews, and other features
• Valuable data on user behavior
• Ability to sell additional services

Useful for:

• Hotels: This is important if you want to attract tech-savvy tourists who like booking on their phones and expect instant confirmations and personalized service.
• Vacation rentals: An app like this will be helpful for property owners who want to give guests more booking options and freedom so they can book at the last minute or while they're traveling.
• Hostels: A solution like that is great for younger tourists on a budget who book quickly and easily on their phones.
• Boutique hotels: The app can easily offer personalized suggestions, reward programs, and extra services.

Typical mistakes made by hotel owners and how to avoid them

A reservation system on a hotel website and a booking portal pursue almost the same goals: making sales, raising brand recognition, gaining customer loyalty, and increasing profits.

Wondering how to make a hotel booking app or website and achieve all of these goals? We’ll go through common mistakes in the reservation system/booking portal development and provide tips to avoid them.

Implementing a booking module “because everyone already has it.”

Solution. First, you need to understand your specific customers. Web analytics data can help you make data-driven decisions to increase profitability. Studying your audience and your website is the right way to increase profitability.

You’re not paying attention to the choice of a development company

Solution. Look for a reputable software development company with a proven record of creating digital hotel solutions.

Experienced specialists are essential in ensuring that your app satisfies user and guest expectations. Unless you have a dedicated team of developers, working with a company experienced in the hotel industry is recommended. Mind Studios has a solid track record of developing specialized solutions for hotels and property management. Don’t hesitate to contact us to see how we can help you grow your business.

Ignoring the analysis of indicators (both visitors and bookings)

Solution. A bet on promotion in search engines, getting into the top 10 in search results, and getting many visitors to the site is a significant success factor, but it’s not yet an indicator of return on investment. You should analyze real bookings via your website module as well.

You think that an expensive solution means a professional one

Solution. Consider your booking website or mobile app development strategy carefully. Then, you’ll understand what features your reservation solution needs and invest your money wisely.

Key features for a hotel booking app

What are the key hotel website features that you need to include in your platform? Let’s take Booking.com as an example — a leading online travel service that offers a robust platform that connects millions of users with lodging options worldwide.

Below, we explore the essential features and modules that make up such a platform, divided into features for users and hotels, and the common issues they address so you can decide which will fit your app the best.

For customers

Include the following features in your platform to provide a seamless experience for your customers:

1. Customer accounts

Customers should be able to easily create accounts to manage personal information, view booking history, and set preferences for future bookings. This feature also allows them to access personalized services, encouraging loyalty by offering a customized experience.

2. Advanced search and filter system

When building a hotel website or an app, it is important to offer customers a sophisticated search and filter system that enables them to find accommodations based on various criteria such as location, price, ratings, and amenities. This functionality will reduce the time and effort needed to find the right accommodation, ensuring customers quickly identify options that meet their specific needs.

3. Detailed property listings

Include a section with detailed descriptions, high-quality photos, videos, and even 3D tours of properties. Comprehensive visual and textual information will help customers make informed decisions and increase the likelihood of booking conversions.

4. Customer reviews and ratings

Provide access to verified reviews and ratings from previous guests, complete with detailed comments and photos. This feature builds trust by offering genuine feedback from real guests, which is crucial for customers in selecting accommodations.

5. Booking and reservation management

Allow customers to make, modify, and cancel bookings with ease. The system should provide instant confirmation and clear cancellation policies, with options for flexible booking where possible. This feature offers flexibility and reduces the stress associated with booking changes.

6. Secure payment system

Integrate a secure payment module that supports multiple payment methods and currencies. This system will ensure smooth and safe transactions, providing peace of mind for customers and fostering trust in your platform.

7. Personalized recommendations

Offer personalized accommodation recommendations based on past bookings, customer preferences, and browsing behavior. This feature enhances the user experience by making the search process more relevant and increasing customer satisfaction.

8. Support for multiple languages and currencies

Enhance the user experience by providing the platform in multiple languages and allowing payments in various currencies. This feature will improve accessibility for international customers, making it easier for them to book confidently and expanding your platform’s reach.

9. Flexible cancellation policies

Ensure your platform provides a clear, consistent, and flexible cancellation policy for all listed properties. Aggregating properties under a single policy streamlines the booking process for customers, fosters trust, and increases the possibility of them choosing your platform for dependable and fair cancellation policies.

10. 24/7 customer support

Provide 24/7 support through chat, email, or phone, with multilingual assistance to cater to a global audience. This feature offers immediate help with booking issues or inquiries, enhancing customer satisfaction and trust in the platform.

For hoteliers

Here, we’ll take a quick look at the functionality of the booking platform as an integral part of successful hotel management:

1. Hotelier accounts

Provide hoteliers with a comprehensive admin panel to manage property listings, customer interactions, and internal processes. This feature will enable hoteliers to analyze customer data and optimize their operations.

2. Property listing management

Allow hoteliers to create and update property listings, including pricing, availability, and amenities. This feature simplifies property information management and ensures that listings are always accurate and up-to-date.

3. Real-time room management

Enabling real-time updates on booked and available rooms will streamline the process of managing room availability. This functionality will help hoteliers avoid overbooking and ensure smooth operations.

4. Multi-level media galleries

Incorporate multi-level galleries that allow hoteliers to showcase property images, videos, and augmented reality tours. This feature can be easily added using plugins, making it simple for hoteliers to upload and update media content, thereby enhancing the visual appeal of listings.

5. Dynamic pricing and revenue management

Provide tools for dynamic pricing, promotional offers, and revenue tracking. This feature helps hoteliers optimize their pricing strategies based on demand, competition, and market trends, which is crucial for maintaining profitability.

6. Reservation management system

Offer a comprehensive reservation management system that handles bookings, cancellations, and modifications, integrating with the property’s internal systems like Property Management Systems (PMS). This feature reduces the risk of overbooking and ensures smooth operations.

7. Guest communication tools

Enable direct communication with guests before, during, and after their stay. This includes automated messaging, handling special requests, and collecting feedback, improving guest relations and overall experience.

8. Analytics and reporting

Provide insights into booking trends, guest demographics, and financial performance through dashboards and detailed reports. This feature allows hoteliers to make informed decisions, and to optimize thier marketing efforts and operational efficiency.

9. Review management system

Implement a system that monitors and responds to guest reviews, effectively managing online reputation. This feature helps hoteliers build trust and improve guest satisfaction by addressing feedback promptly.

10. Channel management

Sync rates and availability across multiple distribution channels, including OTA platforms and direct booking engines. This feature ensures consistency across all platforms, preventing overbooking and simplifying inventory management.

11. Payment status tracking

Provide a feature that allows hoteliers to track booking payment status. This will help them manage finances effectively, ensuring all transactions are complete and reducing the risk of financial discrepancies.

Homeowners and guests need customized solutions, and Mind Studios understands this. Based on our hospitality software development experience, our user-friendly apps are packed with features to improve efficiency and satisfy guests. For example, cross-platform management and integration were our top priorities on MushRoom to simplify landlord and tenant management.

When developing MushRoom, we prioritized user convenience and included a wide range of filters when searching for a room.
For local landlords, we created a control panel that allowed integration with other platforms and managing the availability of their housing on multiple platforms at the same time.

—Dmitry Dobritskiy, Mind Studios Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

But how can you make an online hotel booking website or an app and do it well? We have a list of criteria for the perfect solution:

• Be functional. Fast-loading and responsive pages, easy navigation, and a simple and intuitive interface make the site easy to view.
• Be informative. Offer detailed information, provide updates, add images, videos, and reviews.
• Gather analytics. It’s worthwhile collecting information on the website's operations and services to assess their effectiveness.
• Provide good value to customers. By offering additional savings for the platform’s visitors, including promotions, discounts, and last-minute deals, you can make the site more attractive, increase audience loyalty, and drive traffic and conversions.
• Be customer-oriented. Take an example from Booking.com and ask your customers what they want to see on your website or mobile app.

A high-quality custom hotel booking website or app must include customer and hotelier functionality. Integrating the above features into your hotel booking platform will create a strong, competitive solution for users and hoteliers. These elements address operational inefficiencies, market competition, and customer satisfaction to create a successful online travel platform.

How to build a successful booking website or an app?

To create a hotel website project that can compete with a tourism industry behemoths similar to Booking.com, you’ll need a team of professionals and substantial investments. Keep in mind that any software project needs to go through development stages, subsequent maintenance, and marketing campaigns before it turns a profit.

Booking.com, of course, has successful competitors, but each of them got a lot of money at the start, a large, skilled team, and put in hard work. It makes no sense to downgrade the scope of a hotel booking website idea implementation — its success is on its massive scale. It’s also meaningless to cut a hotel booking app price when building an online booking system for hotels because it’ll cause sacrificing must-have functionality.

However, you can always start with a niche app and grow from there. For this reason, before starting development, you need to define the following clearly:

• Your validated idea
• Your working concept
• Understanding of competitors
• Your competitive advantages
• Your business plan

We’ve previously discussed how to develop a business plan and create a business model canvas. Doing these things will allow you to validate your ideas, develop a business strategy, and predict your actions in a changing market.

Let’s get to the main steps in hotel booking app development.

Step 1: Discovery

This stage entails conducting preliminary market research and identifying chances to make your product appealing to customers:

• Define your vision for the platform, the challenges it will cover, a unique value proposition, and potential revenue streams.
• Determine who your target audience is.
• Consider your hotel booking app or website's logic and functionality; create an epics list.
• Design a plan for your product’s navigation.

After completing these tasks, you will have a working prototype of the booking platform that you can improve.

Step 2: Idea validation

This step requires a significant investment of expertise and effort. You’ll need the assistance of a development team to accomplish this:

• Perform comprehensive market research
• Survey the target audience
• Develop a thorough business strategy
• Determine the primary and secondary features of a hotel booking system
• Create mockups for the platform

At the end of this stage, you will have a trial version of the booking application or website to showcase to your potential users.

Step 3: UX strategy

This phase implies thorough work with your product’s interface. Here’s what your team will do:

• Create an information chart that depicts the data linking points and structure
• Develop a high-quality product prototype
• Outline a clear development schedule with deadlines

You will then have a high-quality prototype of your booking platform closer to its final design.

Step 4: Design and development

It is the stage in which the development magic happens. The project development has several phases, the so-called sprints. Here is the sequence of them:

• The design sprint is the process of approving the look and feel of your platform
• The technical setup sprint is about defining functionality
• The development sprint is, in fact, product development

As an outcome, you get a minimum viable product (MVP).

Are you looking to validate your hotel booking platform idea? Schedule a free call with Mind Studios to create a streamlined MVP that brings your idea to life and sets the foundation for future growth.

Step 5: Testing and improvement

It is the final stage that marks the launch of your platform. Your team will do the following:

• Test your product
• Fix the bugs
• Analyze user feedback
• Polish functionality to perfection

Your platform is now complete and ready for use. It will still need maintenance, especially if you wish to introduce new features.

Are you ready to take your hotel business online? Schedule a free consultation with our experts to learn how we can help you create an effective hotel booking platform tailored to your needs.

How much does it cost to make a hotel booking website and app?

It is the most frequently asked question of all startup founders, since they tend to realize their ideas with a limited budget. But it isn’t possible to estimate the hotel booking app development cost precisely here and now.

If you want to learn more about app development costs or delve deeper into cost breakdowns, read about them in our guide here.

According to preliminary estimates, the cost to create a hotel booking website can start from $60,240 and may vary depending on:

• Project functionality
• Design
• Development company size and location
• Technologies used
• Developers’ hourly rate
• Technical difficulties that may arise

Hotel booking app development and its cost also include the following:

Project management

Project management is necessary to organize the whole team’s work effectively. It includes planning and supervising the task completion to deliver a quality project timely.

Frontend development

The frontend is everything a user sees when opening a website. The development includes displaying functional tasks on the user interface.

Backend development

The backend is the basis of any website, and without it, its frontend part wouldn’t work. It is everything that runs on the server side.

Admin panel

The admin panel is, in fact, a content management system. It is necessary to operate and modify the content of a website.

UI/UX design

Hotel booking website design is a crucial visual component of your platform. Whether a customer stays on your platform significantly depends on its quality. The work of UI/UX designers is to create a beautiful visual part and provide convenience and clarity of use.

Testing and improving

Testing is necessary to identify and fix all possible bugs on a website. It is impossible to develop a high-quality functional product without this.

In the table below, we’ll estimate the rough cost of creating a hotel website or a booking app design.

Hotel booking website approximate cost
Stage	Hours	Cost
Project management	100	$4,000+
Frontend development	450	$18,000+
Backend development	450	$18,000+
Admin panel development	96	$3,840+
UI/UX design	160	$6,400+
Testing and improving	250	$10,000
Total	1506+	$60,240+

What about a mobile application? You also need a team of specialists to develop it. Here is the approximate cost of building a mobile booking application separately for iOS and Android.

iOS hotel booking app cost		Android hotel booking app cost
Project management	$1,800+	$1,800+
Development	$18,800+	$18,000+
Backend development *to be used from website	$6,500+	$6,500+
UI/UX design	$3,200+	$1,600+
Testing and improving	$4,000+	$4,000+
Total	$34,300+	$31,900+

The Mind Studios experience

At Mind Studios, we know how to develop a hotel booking website in practice, not just in theory. Let us share two significant cases that highlight our expertise.

Rentorr: A platform for renting accommodation in South Africa

Rentorr is a web-based rental system with thousands of leasing possibilities. Renting in South Africa became easier with this service, as our team created a hassle-free website where you can sign a tenancy contract in minutes.

The primary goal was to create a product that would help residents of South Africa rent out their accommodation and locate trustworthy tenants. The main challenge was checking the reliability of potential tenants. Our solution? We integrated with South African banks to work with their API, allowing the Rentorr platform to determine a tenant’s trustworthiness score, enabling landlords to make informed decisions.

MushRoom: A platform for renting accommodation in Ukraine

For MushRoom, we developed a service for quickly booking apartments in Ukraine’s resorts and tourist destinations. One significant challenge was aggregating real-time information for a landlord whose properties were listed on various real-estate websites. We solved this by syncing our system with multiple booking websites and creating an intuitive interface to keep apartment statuses up-to-date. Additionally, we developed iOS and Android applications with numerous filters, ensuring a seamless booking experience.

By avoiding common pitfalls and leveraging our extensive experience, you can successfully build a hotel booking website that meets your business goals.

Mind Studios – your reliable partner in developing booking solutions

Setting up a booking system for a website and/or app takes a lot of effort. Still, all contributions are well worth it. With an online booking platform, your hotel business will reach new heights, attract more guests, and, consequently, bring in more profits.

We hope we fully illustrated the potential of creating hotel booking systems and the cost of booking app development. If you are considering building a booking website or a mobile app for your hotel, Mind Studios’ developers and business consultants are ready to help.

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