After the Covid19 pandemic, the traveling and tourism experience has changed among various travel enthusiasts across the world. They’ve started using various travel and tour apps that help them control their travel budget and enhance their experience. So, the demand for advanced travel and tourism apps has increased. Many start-ups want to know how to make a travel guide app to facilitate their local audience.
App developers and companies based at some travel destinations often start such businesses and earn impressively. After visiting a destination, the first thing that tourists do is use a local network and traveling app on their smartphone. They don’t want to keep asking people who don’t even know their language and waste their time.
Hence, regional and local app companies want to know how to make a travel guide app so that they could earn from the tourists and visitors who visit their place. Tourists usually buy offers and get discounts on such mobile apps. They also get information about various places to visit at a travel destination.
In this post, we’ll discuss how you can build such an app and contribute to your regional tourism business. So, let’s get started!
What is a City Guide App & Why Should You Make One?
Travel agencies are running an entire industry for the last 3 to 4 decades. Now, these travel agencies work online. The internet has made their work easier and more fun. They can reach out to many customers through a mobile app or website quickly. As such, city guide applications are getting popular among travel agencies and businesses. To know how to make a travel guide app they must consult an app development company and share their business model.
The app can bring millions of users who like to travel locally or internationally. Therefore, the app owner has to facilitate local as well as foreign travelers. Consequently, the app traffic increases and brings more conversions. Here are some leading reasons why you should build a city guide app:
- To Engage Local and Foreign Tourists
- Facilitate the Local Administration of a Tour Destination
- Help Other Local Travel Agencies
- Providing Latest Information About the Places
- Providing Suggestions Regarding Homestays, Hotels & Resorts
- Let the Users Navigate the Place While Traveling Alone or First Time
- Getting Attention from New Users and Tourists
- Promoting Tourism in a Particular City or Town
For doing all that, you need a city guide app. And, before having a city guide application, you must find a perfect app development company. An app development company can help you understand how you can transform your app-building plans into reality!
Create a Tour Guide App for Your City
The next question that arises is how to build such applications. You can either hire an app development team at your workplace or consult an app development company experienced in building such apps. You may also hire a freelancer group if available to cut the development cost and safeguard your project budget. Enlisted are some steps followed by the developers to build such a city guide app. Take a look:
1. Decide on the Ideal Platform
The first thing that every mobile app owner does is to choose their target audience. That means a target platform where they have to deploy their app. There are majorly 2 platforms preferred by most developers and app companies. One is Google Play Store; another is Apple Store. Most users install their apps from these 2 platforms. You can also select both platforms.
2. Decide the Key Features
Now comes in listing part. A tourist guide app has many attractive features that contribute to user participation. These features include- Offline Mode, Multi-Lingual Languages, Public Transport Info, Info in Parking Place, Essential Contact Numbers, Geolocation, Place Search, Social Media Integration, Reviews & Recommendations, etc. The developers list down such features in advance.
3. Select a Project Management Approach
Project management and planning are important to overcome any future problems. There are different methodologies preferred by the developers as per project goals and requirements. Agile methodology is one of the most used methods to build a mobile app. Besides, you can create a wireframe or prototype to get a clear idea of the development process you need to follow.
4. Estimate the Project Cost
The project cost is calculated over different aspects. The app features, management approach, design elements, development operations, and testing solutions together contribute to the app development cost. A new travel guide app can be created within 8 to 10 weeks depending on the place, technology used, and other factors. It may cost between $14k to $20k for building such an app.
5. Do the App Designing
This is a time taking process and the developers need to make sure of many design components. The components are usually divided into UI and UX design. UI consists of elements that target user attention, whereas UX consists of elements promoting user actions. They can use various front-end tools to design their mobile app. The tools also contribute to the project cost sometimes.
6. Technology Stack
You can’t go for an app-building project without a technology stack. It is a group of technological tools and frameworks used for creating a mobile app. For making a local city guide app, you can use Alerts API, Travelopro API, Expedia Affiliate Network API, Instagram-Twitter SDKs, etc. You can also choose a language depending on if you want to create a native, hybrid or cross-platform app.
7. Development & Testing
When you decide on your tools and instruments, it is time to start the project. App development is divided into Backend and Frontend development. Nowadays, the developers use backend development only to make some customizations to their apps. Testing is also important for how to make a travel guide app. It protects the app against cyber-attacks and other issues in the future.
8. Launch, Promotion & Maintenance
You may launch your app on Google Play, App Store, Microsoft Store, or all of them. First, decide your target audience and then decide on an ideal platform to launch your app. After the launch, you need frequent support and maintenance for a couple of months. Moreover, you must promote your tourist guide app project for higher user traffic and recognition.
Wrapping Up
In the end, we’d like to suggest you contact a trusted mobile app development company and start your project ASAP. The competition is rising for all types of mobile apps and online business models in the app market. Tourism is approached as Covid19 restrictions are lifting out of many countries. To know more on how to make a travel guide app connect with us!
