According to the TripAdvisor opinion poll over 60 per cent of respondents install applications on their mobile devices that may be helpful on their upcoming trips. At the same time, according to the PhoCuzWright survey, 75 per cent of people whose work involves business trips (5 and more trips per year), and more than a half of all tourists use smart mobile devices, which allow apps installation. And the most important thing is that these numbers are growing steadily and incredibly fast.
So, it is hardly surprising that the mobile industry offers to those who work in an intensely competitive hospitality industry, including hotel business, an excellent opportunity to improve the quality of their customer service. Some businessmen might feel unsure about embracing new technologies and introducing them in their business, but as their customers (regular and prospective) are extensively investigating the fast-paced world of mobile technologies, they just can’t afford to be lagging behind. And the only way to avoid this is to take advantage of the unlimited opportunities that the mobile industry provides for your business development.
How to minimize expenses on creating a mobile application for your business and maximize its efficiency? As mobile development is now a growing trend it may be quite expensive. Moreover, you will have to deal with a wide range of specialists: from UX (user experience) specialists to software engineers who will be developing the application, not to mention quality assurance specialists who will ultimately send you back either to the first or to the second group of experts. Therefore, the fastest, most reliable, and above all most affordable way of having a mobile application developed is to consult a reliable company which can offer you a turnkey solution for your business. You have every reason to believe that as it will be:
• Fast. The main advantage of the turnkey solution is that it only needs to be slightly modified to suit your needs. Our specialists will only have to customize it in accordance with your brand-book, then adjust it to the functionality you need on your site and your own unique application is ready to use.
• Reliable. The high-quality, properly adjusted and well-tested product will be used as the basis for your application. There will be no abrupt “bugs” that may ruin the user’s impression of your brand. No extra expenses to be wasted on improvement and bug fixing. You and your customers will be using a top quality — as regards UX — product.
• Inexpensive. It is obviously much more reasonable to use a quality off-the-shelf product than to go to all the expense of employing a whole lot of specialists to create your own.
The limited degree of customization of such ready-made solutions might be considered as the only drawback of the system. They are all developed in such a way that allows them to be customized in accordance with the specific needs of a client. So it is obvious that not everything can be customized. However, customizable options will definitely not break the intactness of the solution, simplicity and usability of the interface for the users of your application.
At the moment there is a variety of such solutions on the market. Unfortunately, most application developers still use the same outdated web technologies. In simple terms, your application is actually a single web-page enclosed in a shell which is specific to each mobile platform, whether it is Android, iOS or Windows Phone. However, such solutions are rather “clumsy” and their slow operation speed, crude graphics, primitive animations are very likely to scare off your mobile application users, and the necessity of being constantly “online” required in most cases — which is usually difficult while roaming — can cause a great deal of inconvenience to your customers. In short, using such solutions does not differ much from viewing a website from any mobile device. Even though it does not pose a big problem for your guests, such solutions fail to employ even a tenth part of the potential their smart mobile devices have.
HotelCard is a perfect application designed especially for hotels. Until now only big international hospitality corporations like Hilton or Marriott were able to afford software of such quality, but today every hotel or a hotel chain can roll out the mobile application which their customers will be happy to use. There are several key distinctive features that make HotelCard stand out from a great number of similar solutions:
• Native application. No web-interface, only quality and smooth animations and native platform graphics.
• Offline operation. Your customers do not need to be online to use your app. With HotelCard clearly presented and detailed information about your hotel is always available to them whether they are roaming in any foreign country or visiting places with no cellular network at all.
• High-class UX. Only top specialists in mobile technologies were employed to create HotelCard, and the same specialists will develop your application.
• Guide Book. To make your application even more attractive to your customers we suggest that you include in your app some useful information about the city: its cultural sites and attractions, nightlife and entertainment. It would be great if you provide them with interactive maps and some practical travel tips. Thus with your application your guests will have a great guide book on hand, that can help them to make the most of their time while staying at your hotel and they will not need any other travel guides or directories.
