NB: This is a guest article by Ros Bulych, managing partner of Lemberg Mobile.
Brochures, guides, maps and tons of other printed material could be done away with for good thanks to the new black in the world of mobile apps – destination applications.
Apart for replacing the traditional printed matter, they help the visitors thoroughly explore a destination, provide them with useful info, help to navigate and share their experiences via social media.
Such apps are also an additional channel for promoting and monetising a destination, rather than product apps for hotels, car hire, Â airlines and other, core product services.
Destination apps are springing up more and more. World-famous resorts, on the one hand, and smaller travel destinations like hotels, parks, museums, galleries, you name it, on the other – seem totally obsessed with having both virtual guides and mobile guides to offer to their visitors and customers.
However, destination apps for in particular indoor and outdoor environments are quite a market novelty. Therefore, there are no set procedures for selecting the right app type.
Despite the relative concept novelty, a variety of top-notch technologies are at your disposal now:
- Plug and play solutions – easy-to-use and efficient tool which doesn’t require advanced technical skills.
- Platform-based customised app development – service based on by niche experience and technological groundwork.
- Custom mobile apps development service – developing apps from scratch: a flexible, but expensive and quite risky tactics.
The chief points of reference are the average cost of such solutions, delivery time, and broadly the pros and cons.
1. Plug-and-play solutions
These ones are a kind of ready-to-go solutions. They are easy to use without any additional help: you select what you need, as usual – register on the website, get an account, upload your content – and voila!
The mobile app is created. You pay for a high-quality, polished product ready to distribute to your potential visitors around the world.
In case of P&P, everything (starting from the sign-up step and up to the application building part) is done automatically.
But the building process must be conducted manually (normally, by the solution provider). App submission process requires additional effort, too: you should do it yourself or the provider will do it for you (it depends, there are different systems on the market).
There are a number of advantages to P&P:
- the delivery time is short (typically 2-6 weeks)
- the price scheme is convenient: it consists of a setup fee (paid once) and an annual fee (covers support, future updates and changes)
- the price is reasonable (an average cost of $195 – $12,000 per year and a setup fee of $0 – $2,400)
- multiplatform support
However, some drawbacks should be admitted, too:
- limited branding capability: no room for design customisations (there will be a set of templates to choose from) and no possibility of adding any optional features;
- there may be difficulties in integration with your existing legacy system (accommodation, booking, e-commerce systems, your website content)
Top-rated suppliers of such take-and-go products are: AnyMapps, MobileRoadie, My Tours, SwebApps
2. Platform-based customised app development
For the most part, companies specialising in destination apps development have been at this for some time, and have created their own technological solution or platform.
A proper background should allow them to offer a high-professional solution and efficiently use a variety of customisation tools.
Some other features of this option are:
- the delivery time is longer: from 1 to 6 months;
- multiplatform development is offered;
- the payment method may differ: one time fee or a setup fee plus annual fee (optional);
- flexible about integration with your legacy system(s);
- CMS: you’ll be allowed to choose between a default CMS or the CMS which is integrated with your website (in which case there will be no need to upload the content twice and your mobile app and website assets will be synced)
Similar to the P&P approach, there are drawbacks.
Typically good things cost money, so be prepared to stretch your budget (however, the price is not all that sky-high: ($2,500+ per year and $1,500+ for setup fee on average)
Experienced and leading suppliers of such custom development services are: AVAI Mobile Solutions, Chimani, Discover Anywhere Mobile, GuideOne, Nomad Mobile Guide, Packed2Go, Pixie Pins, Trailtap, Zonear.
3. Custom mobile App
Basically, this is something you can request at any mobile development company.
If you go with this approach, be sure you will get full app customisation if you desire it, as well as flexibility of the solution, and last but not least, integration with your existing legacy system.
The points to watch out for are:
- with companies that are first-timers with such solutions, lots of bugs and quality issues should be expected.
- consequently, more risks and less chance of meeting the project timeline.
- delivery and support process won’t run smooth either.
- high price is another drawback: this type of solution will often set you back $10,000 (per platform)
Summary
In the destination mobile app market, there is something new springing up literally every week. This is a good trend as it ensures the market evolves quickly and new technology and methods are constantly improving.
Out of the three options discussed above, all are well-grounded and we are not in favour of any of them.
However, I’d say the second option particularly stands out, offering a possibility of both customisation and branding, and flexibility of the approach and feature set. And all this – at a reasonable cost.
NB: This is a guest article by Ros Bulych, managing partner of Lemberg Mobile.
NB2: Multiple apps image via Shutterstock.
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Um please let me know ANY place I can develop a custom app for $10,000!!
Custom apps come in all shapes and sizes. Really, it all depends on the set of functionality the customer requests.
It used to cost a lot to develop a custom app back in the days when iPhones just emerged, but now the mobile app development market is facing tough competition for one, and there are also ready-made components to use, say http://mapp.android-libraries.com. All these factors have contributed to the overall decrease in app development cost.
Rather than an app for destinations, how do you feel about adaptive websites? One website with one CMS that adapts to all screen sizes? There is a price involved, but it seems advantageous to those destinations in need of a website overhaul to have it built adaptively, eliminating the need for a separate mobile app or mobile website.
Of cource, an adaptive website is the right way to go, until you find yourself in need of ‘native’ functionality, e.g.:
- offline mode
- augmented reality
- custom zoomable interactive maps
- push-messaging
- geo-targeting
If a destination has decided to go mobile with the native approach, it’s good to have a single CMS for both mobile&web and pull content from the website via API.
Concerning the “To app or not to app” question – a great article has been published recently on Tnooz: http://www.tnooz.com/2012/05/04/mobile/to-app-or-not-to-app-that-is-the-question-but-what-is-the-answer-in-travel/
Interesting article.
Although I believe there’s lots of room for native apps over adaptive websites (or responsive websites as the webdesign community likes to call it) things like, offline mode, push-messaging and geo-targetting as perfectly possible with html on modern browsers (i.e: at least all the latest iOS and Android devices)
Interesting thoughts on how to go about getting a mobile presence but seems to drastically underestimate the cost of a compelling mobile app. Probably closer to $100,000.
The limits of cross-platform customised apps should also be mentioned, it can make users feel cheated if they are just given a wrapped webpage. Most developers can provide a significantly better user experience with a custom mobile app.
You have a point there – however, we intended to provide an average cost for a solution for a small-scale resort or park, nothing too huge, without custom UI or very intricate feature set.
As for the native app versus wrapped app dilemma, much has been said about this, and may I say that on top of this customers are often cheated into paying for a native app and get what seems like one, but really is just a web app with native wrappers.
True cross-platform native apps will set you back quite a bit indeed.
Certainly true, the list of platform based apps is very interesting and clearly serves the needs of those parks/destinations very well for the price. There are companies there we would recommend to use when there is no need or budget for a native experience.
I think the difficulties arise from stakeholders not understanding the tremendous difference in effort between platform solutions and fully-customised bespoke apps.
What is missing from this write-up (and missing from the aforementioned providers’ solutions) are the things DMOs should be doing from an app beyond providing a DMO member directory:
– building an email list and push notification list;
– push notification capabilities;
– generating content about the destination;
– pushing in-app actions to social media.
At Trazzler and via the Open Places project, we are working to solve this problem. Info: blog.trazzler.com
Within travel apps, there are not only Travel Destination Apps, but also other Travel Apps handy to use when travelling.
An App which I can advice is BuddyCalc: a reliable tool to keep track of expenses and share costs with others.
App Store: http://bit.ly/AppStoreBuddyCalc
Website: http://buddycalc.com
Great overview, and quite useful for anyone looking into destination app development.
I would just add one other existing development model:
3a pay-per-user app development
no development cost, payments based on the actual number of app users
no users = no payment
Hi Ros, great article!
mTrip offers all three solutions. mTrip apps have over 1.6 million downloads and have been featured on CNN’s Top 50 Ultimate App List, Playboy.com and more! mTrip has already created apps clients such as Aruba, Trondheim and several travel publishers and tour operators.
http://www.mtrip.com/white-label-travel-app/
Alexander – mTrip Travel Guides
Thanks for the article! Although I found the title a little misleading. Does anybody have tips about the actual building, not having it built elsewhere? I realize the scale of different technologies required will be vast. I imagine you’ll need to master probably at least the development software involved with the various platforms as well as basic web development and design and whatever programming languages necessary. But are there specific travel-tech related technology skills one must posses? For instance, what technologies are involved in designing software for making actual bookings & what connections are involved? Appreciate any thoughts!
Henjo