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Develop Flights and Hotel Booking App Like Hopper
On-Demand Apps

How To Develop Flights and Hotel Booking App Like Hopper?

Manav Patel,

Travelers are tech-savvy and always on the move. They want to know all their options and what’s convenient for them. The way travelers book their dream trip is changing — from booking a hotel to buying a plane ticket; travelers want to do it all from one convenient place. Hence, to fulfill the all-of-in-one-pack demand of travelers, developing a flight & hotel booking app is the ultimate solution for today’s travel agencies.

Well, for a long time, the travel industry has been slow to accept change. There was definitely a time when the industry was scared of technology and didn’t want to accept that it was a necessity for the future. But now, travel and the travel industry have made complete strides in the past few years and have really embraced change. 

For that reason, it’s really exciting to see the direction that the travel industry is moving — especially with the introduction of travel apps like Hopper. Because it’s a roughly 7 trillion dollar industry, and online travel platforms occupy a big part of that. 

If you’re a travel business, you must know how valuable flights & hotel booking app development can be for your bottom line. But don’t take any words for it. Before developing a travel application like Hopper, you need to understand its principle. How it works, what technology it uses, the business model for Hopper-like app development, and of course, the cost to develop an app like Hopper.

So, let’s dive into it one by one.

What is Hopper? Why do people use it?

So, Hopper is an app that tells you when to buy airline tickets for the best price. You simply search for a flight, and if you want to buy it, you tap “Hold.” This means you can buy the flight at this price, and if the price goes higher, you can buy it then. When prices go up, the app will text or email you the new price. 

Moreover, you can also choose to be alerted when the price drops below a certain amount. Down the line, you don’t have to worry about the price changing, because you can buy the ticket at a lower price. You can also set up alerts for specific flights or flights on a certain airline. 

What’s more? You can also use the app to create an Expense Report. Simply enter the flight information, and the app will automatically email the report. The app will notify the person when they are close to their limit. Even if a person wants to book a flight for a business trip, the app makes it easy to book the flight and then track the flights on the app.

How does the travel app Hopper work?

Where to/from:

Basically, in order to find the best hotel prices and airfares, it asks users to enter From and To locations. Not to mention, entering the number of people traveling and whether they would like to book hotel rooms for stay is also available. Then comes the important part, the date and the type of tickets, one-way or roundtrip.

Prediction Magic:

After a user applies all the necessary filters, the app presents a curated list of available flights and hotels. (Yeah, it works like a hotel booking application, too. Versatile, huh?) 

But the copy-worthy part about Hopper is that it tells users whether they should book the tickets or hotel rooms now or wait for the prices to go down. In reality, Hopper uses artificial intelligence prediction algorithms to help travelers know when prices will be high and vice versa. 

Personalization & Push Notifications

Now, users can either select a flight or book tickets right from the app. Or choose Hopper to keep looking for their trip and notify when there’s any price fluctuation.

Furthermore,  this mobile-only travel app channels trips that users watch to send them push notifications with fare predictions. 

For example, it suggests different routes and dates when users can save more. Hopper also shares tips for the right trip decisions.

Altogether, travelers can find cheap flights and hotel rooms and plan trips or book everything right away with a Hopper account.

How to Develop an app like hopper?

It’s a basic necessity to hire expert mobile app developers to build your travel app like Hopper. But pre-development research is inevitable for the success of the app. So, it is suggested to dig deeper into the below realms to ensure a valuable end result.

Target audience and their needs

First thing first, who are you developing your travel app for? How would you serve them if you don’t know them? Hence, you need to target a location and study maximum travelers living there, including what is their income, likes, and dislikes, etc. This way, you can create a business plan revolving around a specific audience, from approaching them to offering value propositions.

Competitor research

Next, start preparing for the cutthroat market. It’s very likely that you will encounter businesses doing the same thing as you do. In that case, how you differentiate your business, catching more eyeballs on what you offer is the question. And competitive analysis is to answer this question. Before you outline your project requirements, make sure you know all your competitors and their plus and minus points.

Find a good technology partner

Not everything written on the resume can be true, right? It happens more often than not with non-tech-savvy entrepreneurs. They might think hiring freelance developers is a cheap option, but there’s no guarantee of quality as there’s no professional project manager to handle the project milestones.

The best substitute for cost-effective and quality app development is partnering with an mobile app development company. Because they work with a full-fledged team of qualified developers, you can rest assured about project completion with quality.

Chief Features For A Travel App Like Hopper

  • Create a profile
  • Location share— from/to
  • Search Flights
  • Filter By Date/Fare
  • Plan a trip
  • Find affordable hotels
  • Keep A Watch For Price Drop
  • Push Notifications
  • Online Flight/Hotel Booking Engine
  • Estimated Spend report
  • In-app payment 
  • Review 

How to make money with a travel app?

You will invest in travel app development, and to earn a return on your investment, you may try the below monetization models:

  • In-app advertising: You can earn by letting any hotel or similar businesses place ads on your app that your user base may see and access. 
  • Commission: Instead of passing customers to other sites, you can let them book flights and hotels on your travel app and charge a small amount of transaction fee on each transaction. 
  • Premium version: It’s kind of like fishing. You offer a basic version of your app and sell a premium version with advanced and beneficial features. 
  • In-app purchases: When you have too many options or services to offer, you can also make money by allowing travelers to buy such travel services within your app. 

In the case of Hopper, the mobile-only travel-booking platform makes money via taking a commission on flight booking.

What does it Cost to Build a travel app like Hopper?

Similar to any other on-demand app, the cost develops an app like Hopper also depends on various factors such as:

Number of App platforms: Android, iOS, Web;

App Design (Simple, Medium, Complex);

APIs to Integrate For Map, Payment, Taxi services, etc.;

Technology stack;

App Features and Testing;

Security and Updates;

The geographical location of the developer (because the hourly development rates differ worldwide);

For example:

  • Eastern Europe – $20 to $150/hour
  • Australia – $50 to $150/hour
  • Eastern Europe – $20 to $150/hour
  • USA/Canada-based dev teams – $50 to $250/hour
  • India – $10 to $80/hour

It’s all for this post. 

If you want to make every voyage of your customers special, you must consider creating a mobile app like Hopper. It’s the best way to scale your travel business globally. At the same time, you can hear and serve your customers in real-time with the advancement of technology.

So, let us know if we can be of any help to make your business a global travel agency.

Manav Patel

Manav Patel is the founder of Kody Technolab. His visionary ideas and passion for technology have backed Kody Technolab's success. He nurtures the team with his knowledge and skills.

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