Thinking of developing a hotel booking website? Well, the first determinant of the costs is what you want to build.
Startups without any properties of their own can create online travel agencies (OTAs) or metasearch engines.
In fact, when searching for “Hotel booking sites” on Google, the results are populated by sites such as Trivago.com, Kayak.com, Booking.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com, and Hotels.com.
The most common similarity across the top sites is that they help clients search, compare, and book their next stays.
Building an OTA (that partners with properties directly) may be more challenging than creating a metasearch engine (which aggregates offers from OTA websites). However, there are ways to save on costs such as building on top of an existing OTA such as the Expedia EPS Rapid API.
Property owners can build dedicated systems that add online reservation capabilities and property management solutions to their websites. Here, the costs vary depending on the required features.
In the end, something has to be built. And the cost to develop an online hotel booking website will ultimately boil down to how much time is spent during development.
There are a lot of variables that will influence this time, including the number of features, design specifications, time spent on competitor analysis & user research, etc.
This article explains how to build a hotel booking website and breaks down the development cost. It highlights must-have features for dedicated systems and OTAs. We’ll further discuss the hotel booking market, revenue models, and booking app types.
Let’s get started:
Hotel booking Market
Benefits of developing a hotel booking system
For dedicated booking systems:
Hotel booking website development focusing on a single property generally provides convenience for the hotel owner and customers. That’s because the booking system can automate and speed up many functions.
For instance, a hotel can eliminate manual booking by showcasing their rooms online, providing automated billing options, and automating inventory management. Customers enjoy the convenience of seeing all available rooms in one place, along with detailed profiles including photos, checking options, reviews, and more.
A fully automated online platform can help cut costs and boost revenues. By reducing manual processes, there is less demand for human capital. It’s easy to scale the system to more locations and process a high number of reservations.
For OTAs and Metasearch engines:
Building a website that aggregates offers in one place provides the following benefits to customers and property owners:
- Increased exposure
Property owners choose to get listed on OTAs and metasearch engines to increase their exposure. The platforms primarily focus on attracting users to their marketplaces, by maintaining a multi-channel online presence and spending considerable resources on marketing efforts.As a testament to how much OTAs invest in marketing, Booking.com spent $3.8 billion on marketing and advertising in 2021 alone. Most of their marketing expenses went towards Google ads. For instance, they reportedly spent $1 billion in 2018 with the search engine. That is why searches for hotels in many markets will likely feature an ad from their company. - Cost reduction
The benefit is mostly directed towards customers, who can always find the best deal on a property. At times, OTAs even have lower prices compared to the actual provider’s website. That’s because they take advantage of their bulk pricing, and vary their commissions depending on how much they want to get paid or how fast they wish to sell their inventory. Most OTAs don’t have monthly subscriptions or listing fees for hotels. - Higher levels of safety and reduced risk
Customers may feel uncertain when making bookings in unknown destinations. However, an established brand can ease their fear and increase confidence. They can access reviews left by past users, who comment on the cleanliness, safety, and user experience.
Types of online hotel booking solutions
The first step of figuring out how to make an online hotel booking website is to recognize the type of system to build. Popular options include:
Start a hotel booking website: business model
The second step in figuring out how to create a hotel booking website is to decide on the revenue model the business will leverage to generate income.
Here are some potential monetization options for an online travel agency, metasearch engine, or dedicated platform:
Steps to make a successful hotel booking website
Wondering how to make a booking website? Here are some recommended steps that will help with the creation of a professional site:
Hotel booking website MVP cost estimation
So, how much does it cost to make a hotel booking website? Well, there are many factors that affect the cost, including:
Conclusion
If you want to undertake hotel reservation website development at convenient rates and with a professional team, you can trust Attract Group for a streamlined process.
