The concept of Airbnb, or Air Bed and Breakfast, has revolutionized
the travel sector. Airbnb is an online service that enables landlords to let out their residential properties to travelers. In essence, there are two categories of users on the Airbnb app: hosts and guests.
Airbnb is a vacation rental firm, as implied by the company name. But you do need to understand the distinction between an Airbnb reservation and a hotel reservation.
Apps Like Airbnb That Are Well-Known And Can Be a Strong Competitor
You might be shocked to learn that there are rivals providing services to online holiday renters similar to Airbnb, including:
HomeToGo
The largest vacation rental metasearch engine in the world, HomeToGo functions as a marketplace and gathers all listings of homes, condominiums, cabins, and other holiday rentals from apps like Airbnb that are working with the company.
The business runs its website and mobile app in 25 different nations across the world. Additionally, HomeToGo has numerous international travel partners, such as Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia, Tripadvisor, Trivago, and others.
According to the HomeToGo annual report 2022, the company received almost 50 million visits per month during its busiest months (like August), worked with more than 60 thousand partners, and generated booking revenue of EUR 163.7 million in 2022—32% more than it did in 2021 altogether. It also reported a 54% global onsite share and a 59% onsite conversion rate.
They also stated further in that study that it exceeded YoY repeat booking by 68% at a CAGR of +57%.
Vrbo
The travel companion of travellers, an online vacation rental business established in 2005 that was once known as HomeAway is now known as Vrbo and is willing to take chances to change while upholding its core values.
With more than 48 million members, Vrbo has more than 2 million properties listed in more than 190 countries globally.
Expedia Group, of which Vrbo is a member, estimated that the gross booking growth would be about 20%, or $29.4 billion, in its most recent Q32023 financial report. Additionally, this year’s first quarter revenue was about $2.7 billion, a rise of 18% from 2022.
Hostelworld
Hostelworld is a sizable network of hostels and backpackers/roomies where people can connect, and meet adventurous souls who will inspire them to step beyond their comfort zones and create amazing travel and meetup tales. It utilizes a unique perspective to go from solo to social.
Backpackers can choose from over 36K properties listed across 178+ countries on Hostelworld, all of which have over 13M verified guest reviews. They can also connect with other travellers who are also planning to stay at that hostel on those dates in order to get to know them and start making adventure plans before they even arrive at the hostel. It contains 10,279 hostels in 2412 cities, to be exact.
In addition to hotel reservations, it also provides hotel and B&B rentals. The finest part about this idea is its distinctive business strategy, which guarantees 100% booking confirmation and, after that, if any user experiences any problems during check-in time, they will receive a promised $50 back from the company along with a full deposit.
Hostelworld reported 4.8 million net bookings and €69.7 million in net revenue for the year 2022 in its financial report.
Finally, all we can conclude is that the Hostelworld application, which it refers to as Roamies, offers travelers an excellent discovery experience.
Booking.com
The full-service online travel agency Booking.com, with its headquarters in Amsterdam and presence in 220 countries, is now available. Its application supports more than 40 commonly spoken languages.
It lists about 400K hotels, motels, and resorts when totaling its global statistics, along with 2.3M houses and apartments. Additionally, it provides excursions & activities in more than 1200 destinations as well as flights in 54 markets.
Booking.com became the most downloaded mobile travel app in the world in 2022 thanks to these services.
Booking.com’s mobile app experience is enjoyable because to a wide variety of colour schemes for its website and mobile application, as well as the utilisation of high-quality images and simple application navigation. As a result, it got 557.5M+ monthly app visits and earned the 41st global rank and third place in the category.
Gross travel bookings for 2022 were $121.3 billion, up 58% from yearly bookings for 2021, according to Booking Holdings’ 2022 yearly Financial Report. In terms of net income, it generated $3.1 billion for the entire 2022 fiscal year, up 162% from the year before.
In short, making.com has everything in store for consumers, from making flights to lodging reservations to locating activities with vehicle rental options and connecting with other travelers to do more.
Therefore, after reading all of these, you must have established a feature list to include in your app. However, to make the process of shortlisting features for your app easier, we’ve done something fantastic for you in the next part.
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How Can an App Like Airbnb Be Created?
As you have already completed all of your research for creating an app similar to Airbnb, from features to API integration and more, it is now time to learn further procedures:
Plan your business
You must be interested in learning the business strategy that Airbnb uses before you begin developing a business plan for your app.
Since Airbnb is a marketplace for vacation rentals, it operates exclusively on a commission-based business model in which it charges hosts and guests platform service fees.
The fundamental elements of the Airbnb business model also comprise:
- USP (Unique Selling Point): Enabling residents to market their homes for rent and provide distinctive and reasonably priced lodging to tourists.
- Revenue Streams: It typically costs hosts 3-6% for listing their property and 15% for more support. Guests pay a booking service fee of between $5 and 15%.
As you can see, Airbnb invests in the management of applications, important resources, and collaborations with property managers, payment processors, and other parties.
In fact, the cost structure of Airbnb’s whole business strategy, including revenue and expenses, is displayed in the graphic below.
In conclusion, you can use the business model that is described below:
- Commission-based Model: Under this scenario, hosts and guests would be charged a platform service fee by the app.
- Subscription Model: This allows hosts to access premium services like increased property visibility, sophisticated analytics, and more by paying monthly or yearly fees.
- Booking Fees: Each booking made using the app will include a modest fee that can be used to cover transaction costs.
- Partnering with local companies and attractions to advertise their services within the app is possible.
- Property Management Services: This feature enables hosts to use the app to hire staff to help them maintain their vacation rentals.
- API licensing: This feature enables you to charge outside developers to integrate your API into their apps.
Locate and Employ Talents
All that preparation is good, but how will you put it into action? You do need a team of experts to accomplish this. But how will you pick the best mobile app development partner for your travel app development is the real question.
It’s really crucial but not difficult; you only need to evaluate a few things, like:
- Seek out a business that has a track record of designing and building travel apps;
- To boost your confidence, look for client testimonials, particularly video testimonials;
- Verify that they are skilled and experienced in using the tools and technology you wish to incorporate into your travel app, more especially, a vacation rental app like Airbnb;
- Submit an RFP to obtain an estimated timeline and price for creating such an app;
- Request information on their service-level agreement, NDA, and post-app release maintenance and support;
- Verify that the group you employ adheres to accepted security and app development best practises;
- Look over the company’s portfolio to see what kind of innovation they put into their work, and read through their success stories to see how their solutions have benefited their clients;
- Look at the engagement options they have, including the Fixed Bucket Model, Monthly Hiring, and Time and material Model.
But what skills does your team need? If you choose the fixed bucket model, your team will include the following skills:
- Project Director
- Enterprise Analyst
- Designers of UI/UX
- Makers of mobile applications
- Front-end programmers
- Back-end programmers
- Engineer, QA
You will be able to locate the top team for your mission-critical app development project by taking all of this into account.
Design with the user in mind
The greatest creative design agency should provide you with talented UI/UX designers to create your first-rate vacation rental software. From research, ideation, and user persona definition through prototype, along with an iterative design cycle, the skilled app designers will work with you throughout the app design phase to provide a mesmerizing app design.
The Phase of Development
Now, your hired app development teams, including web front-end, back-end, and mobile app development teams, get to work creating your business-critical app, like Airbnb, using your authorized technology stack and app UI/UX design.
API & Feature Integration
Based on the Admin, Host, and Guest panels, you may refer to the vacation app features and API integration that we have already described. To ensure that you produce a feature-rich and feature-balanced app like Airbnb, and who knows – even better than Airbnb!, you can even enlist the assistance of MVP model development beginning.
Test, Update, and Repetition
An app’s development is an iterative process that necessitates ongoing trials and errors that result in application enhancements. As a result, the app development team will assist you in implementing new features, evaluating their efficacy, and releasing and updating the app in accordance with user conveniences and market trends.
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Top Errors to Avoid When Building an Airbnb-Style App
You must not wish to make the mistakes listed below while developing an app like Airbnb, which your entire business depends on:
inadequate market research
When designing your business-oriented software, research is essential. If done properly, it will provide you with a wealth of information for future app development planning.
Why travel anyplace when we’ve already done so much research and have a team of project managers and business analysts who have years of experience in the field? Share your app idea with us, and we’ll be your long-term tech partner.
neglecting app performance and user experience
Consider that you are testing a new travel app that has excellent features and benefits but isn’t very responsive, has poor interactions, and even has an unattractive colour palette.
So, if this software offers a lot of useful features but is unreliable, would you still use it? Without a doubt, no, right? The app that delivers dependability in terms of service and user experience is the one you would choose instead.
Therefore, you must put the needs of the user first. Your creative travel app development partner, such as MindInventory, can help you with this.
neglecting to put security first
Security must come first; you never want to owe people money for compromising their identity or personal information and having to pay a high fee for it.
Too much is being attempted too soon.
Create your travel startup app; we know it’s exciting, but don’t try to complete everything at once. Slow down! Of course you’re going to disrupt the market, but to avoid making a large initial investment, start by creating an MVP of your idea, evaluate how well it works, and then gradually move towards full-fledged development.
Putting off investing the necessary money and resources
Everyone enjoys making a tiny investment to get a large return! However, there are situations when you must choose between the lowest price and the highest construction quality. Of course, you want to choose a product with the finest build quality possible because it will provide an outstanding user experience and better commercial potential.
Therefore, never set a budget that is too low and compromise on employing the greatest talent. Choose phase-wise growth as an alternative to start modest and flourish to digital brilliance.
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How Much Does It Cost to Create an Airbnb-Style App?
Well, it’s subjective and depends on the elements you decide to include in the development of your app, similar to Airbnb, such as:
- Choosing between the platforms Android or iOS;
- The number of individuals working on the project and their level of competence;
- The nation of the hired group or individuals;
- The quantity of research necessary for the app;
- The application’s layout;
- The number of panels being used;
- The api integrations’ and the features’ technical complexity;
- The conditions for app testing.
How Can Alphonic Help In The Development Of An App Similar To Airbnb?
Finding a top-notch IT company that can work with any flourishing company on a long-term basis to develop mobile apps might be challenging.
As with Zammans – A Holiday Home Booking App, Alphonic becomes your best option if you’re looking for a dependable mobile app development partner. Your one-stop shop for business-based research, design, development, and post-delivery support for digital product development.
For more info: WhatsApp us at +91 9887133338
