Consider These 5 Features During Travel Portal Development

Travel portal development is not a child's play. If you are among them who think having some exotic images of destinations can attract customers, then you're wrong! They might show up to check out images but not for booking. Developing a travel portal is a pretty cumbersome task, without having experts on-board people find it difficult creating them.

Gone are those days where people used to avail services from offline travel agencies/agents bearing a heavy loss. But, due to technological advancement, everything has changed drastically in the travel industry. All offline tour and holiday packages distributors are moving their business online by availing travel portal development services from different tech-savvy companies. In this tech dominant era, people have become more choosy than ever because of the availability of abundant options for the same thing. This has hiked the competition in the travel market. In this blog, I am going to discuss some of the vital features you need to work on while developing a travel portal. So, let’s get started!

Top 5 Features to Add-In During Custom Travel Portal Development

As far as data is concerned, 36% of travellers were willing to pay more for customised information while 57% of travellers feel that travel websites should customise information based on their past booking and personal preference. It is seen that 1 out of 3 travellers use the digital assistant to research and book their travel.

This data shows that people’s travel preference is changing significantly in recent years. As a result, you should be focusing on strategising your service offering effectively and having a feature-packed travel portal can be a checklist to that. Your business travel portal adds more charm when you find someone who can design and deliver at an affordable travel portal development cost (won't ask for more, right?). This is why I am mentioning some of the best features to add in during the development of travel portal to attract potential customers. Check them out!

#1 Work on a Responsive & Mobile-friendly Design

If various data is considered, 42% of travellers aged under 35 years are seeking out travel inspirations using their mobile devices, and the fact is, 36% use their mobile devices to book trips as well. And you know it’s 2020, and if you don’t have a travel portal that is mobile-friendly along with the best responsive design then you are missing out on a large volume of potential customers. Having such a large volume of users, you shouldn’t avoid investing in custom travel portal development by hiring a travel portal development company to bring in potential customers.

#2 User-friendly Suggestive Search Bar

Search bars are the heart of any travel portal. Without them, your booking portal is of no use, and you know that as well. Most of the travellers who research over a booking portal don’t have a specific destination unless they are supposed to travel for work purpose. Search bars should show suggestive keywords when anyone enters something relevant in there.

Using Geo-location to determine the customers’ local currency can enhance their experience on a travel portal because it can save a lot of time of a user while searching for any destination in “from or to” section. However, having an advanced search option can act as a cherry on the top.

#3 Keep Transparency in Pricing Details

Various data surveys have revealed that approximately 50% of travel booking portal users abandon their search when they are presented by a total price at last. If you want conversions you need to work on the shopping cart abandonment rates, then you need to disclose all the fees and miscellaneous charges without hiding them at every step of the way. For this, you can mention what's not included and what is included in the service they are availing.

Try to be as comprehensive as possible and provide complete information every time. Keep the pricing approach transparent and win the trust and loyalty of the potential customers, it is as simple as that.

#4 Inclusion of Third-party Reviews & Social Proof

According to the survey of travel booking giants like TripAdvisor, about 95% of travellers read reviews before they complete the real booking. Reviews are considered the best to help a traveller plan their trip to a specific destination. Hence, you should add unbiased user reviews on your travel website.

#5 Google Maps Integration is Must!

It is always easy for a customer when they see holidays laid out on a map, especially one that’s fully interactive and engaging for the users. This lets your customers see the details of the destinations selected by them. This is why travel portal developers give preference to add Google maps on a travel website.

Wrapping up, I would say as a travel agency/agent you should be aware of what your customers are looking for and if you give them what they looking for, you will never going to lose them in the future. Mark my words!