Everybody loves exploring new locations. We are always looking for reasons to break away from our daily routines and explore new and unexplored places for refreshing moments. Traveling can create wonderful memories that we keep for the rest of our lives.
Travel app like Airbnb have changed the way that people travel and book hotel by offering seamless booking for travellers and hosts around the world. As we look at the rapid growth of this app, business owners are seeking to create an app similar to Airbnb that provides ease of use, flexibility, and a profit. What is the best way for businesses to develop an app like Airbnb?
Understating the process to make a hotel booking app like Airbnb is important to offer a seamless user experience. From property listings and user verification to integration with payment gateways, making rental app like Airbnb requires a solid plan and expertise.
Businesses that are interested in the field of travel can make profit in this industry. All they require is an app like Airbnb.
If you’re looking to get into this business and you are trying to figure out the best way to create a hotel booking app like Airbnb, this guide is definitely for you.
Market Statistics of Vacation Rental Apps
Apps for booking hotels such as Airbnb are among the best holiday rental applications catering to travellers’ needs by offering a unique experience.
Well talking about Airbnb, are you wondering about its growth? Take a look at these fascinating statistics!
- Airbnb is present in more than 191 countries.
- The platform is home to 7.7 million active listings across the globe and hosts 5 million+ hosts.
- Women are in the lead, since the platform boasts 55% of hosts.
- Most women 60 and over have proved to be wonderful hosts with five-star reviews.
- Airbnb produced $9.9 billion in revenue in 2023. This is a 19.2% growth year-on-year.
- A host earns about $14,000 annually on an average through Airbnb.
- Airbnb has more than 150 million customers worldwide, and 1.5 billion stays are booked.
- By 2023, 448 million reservations were made via Airbnb, which is a 13.9% increase over 2022.
- Six guests check in to the Airbnb listings every single second.
What is Airbnb?
Airbnb is a platform that was established in 2008, connecting guests with hosts and accommodations for traveling, tourism purposes, or for any other reason.
It offers houses, apartments, and a variety of other categories, and special types of accommodation such as castles and treehouses. Airbnb is not an ordinary hotel business in which the company has properties for renting; instead, Airbnb facilitates the letting of properties through hosting and guests’ bookings with a commission fee.
The application also lets guests and hosts interact directly via this application to discuss details and confirm bookings.
Airbnb began its existence in 2008 and has since become one of the most frequently used online marketplaces for homestays, with more than 150 million customers from all regions of the globe, as well as four million hosts, and has been established in more than 100,000 cities across 167 countries.
This type of service is appealing and generally cheaper than traditional accommodations, and can design and provide an exclusive and highly customized experience for travelers.
It is for this reason that, by using this innovative concept, Airbnb has become one of the top market players in the travel and accommodations industry.
How Does Airbnb Operate?
Airbnb provides two interfaces for Hosts and Guests. Airbnb offers a variety of services and many features for its customers. Airbnb is an app that connects hosts who have rentals with travelers looking for accommodations. The process to develop a hotel booking app like Airbnb usually involves conducting market research, wireframing UX/UI design, coding, testing, and launching.
Post-launch, regular upkeep and maintenance are crucial for ensuring an uninterrupted user experience and security. Users can create profiles or browse listings by area and filter listings according to amenities, price, and reviews. Hosts can advertise their homes by uploading images, setting prices, and explaining house rules for apps like Airbnb.
To build an app like Airbnb, developers must concentrate on user-friendly design, secure payment processing, and a strong backend to handle listings and interactions with users. If you plan to build an application similar to Airbnb, it is important to understand how the platform works and the backend logic.
For Guests:
- The guest launches the app on mobile or online and logs in or registers.
- The user creates a profile and provides the necessary details, including address, contact information, payment-related details, ID number, and other relevant information.
- The guest can apply various filters and choose the best area to live in based on their preferences for location, date, prices, types of lodging, and much more.
- Then the guest requests accommodation and is given a confirmation.
- The guest pays to reserve the room and other services.
- The last step is to travel and relax during your stay.
For Hosts:
- The host must also sign up or log in to make a profile.
- The host is required to register the property on Airbnb, including property details, photos, address, amenities, property type, number of guests permitted, etc.
- The owner must upload actual photographs of their property, and also include the cost.
- If a guest submits a request to stay, the host can start an exchange to discuss additional details, such as quiet hours, smoking and drinking availability, cleaning requirements, pets, etc.
- If the host is on time, he can agree to the stay and then notify the guest. However, the host can deny the guest’s request as well.
- The host receives the money within 24 hours after the guest is checked in. The guest can post ratings and reviews for the property.
Who are the Major Competitors of Airbnb?
In the last few decades, the travel booking market has grown, and more companies, such as Airbnb, have emerged. Everyone has heard of Booking.com and TripAdvisor. Find out why customers choose certain platforms over others, and what they’re most notable features are.
TripAdvisor
Travelers make use of TripAdvisor to get opinions of others on bars, restaurants, or museums, as well as sightseeing, and other places to go when on vacation. Every establishment will appreciate favorable reviews on TripAdvisor, and many have the option of asking customers to leave a review on their front doors.
Beyond that, it comes in useful when it comes to finding an overnight as well as booking hotels, bed and breakfasts in the vicinity of famous places of interest, train stations, and many other aspects. When you need to book accommodations, TripAdvisor redirects users to other services such as Booking.com, Agoda, or the hotel’s official site. This makes TripAdvisor an ideal platform for travelers who wish to maximize the enjoyment of their travels and choose the best place to stay based on proximity to different points of interest.
Vrbo
Vacation Rentals by Owner, abbreviated to Vrbo, gives travelers an array of accommodations to stay in during their holiday. The holiday rental marketplace offers short-term rental of apartments, villas, and various other types of accommodations. Vrbo does not permit sharing spaces.
They are only available on Airbnb, which suggests that the demographics of both applications are different. While young couples and singles primarily favor Airbnb, Vrbo seems to be a better choice for large families, including children and older people.
Booking.com
The most prominent Airbnb competitor, which is equally vast as Airbnb, has millions of hosts on an advertising platform, as well as thousands of tourists with accommodations. However, there are some differences between the two platforms. While Airbnb’s primary target audience is homeowners who have spare rooms or homeowners of private residences, Booking.com mainly lists hotels.
Simply put, Airbnb is more personal than Booking.com, which is formal. On Airbnb, typically, guests and hosts talk before checking in, and Booking.com users meet host families for the very first time with their bags on both sides.
Steps to Develop an app Like Airbnb
What is the best way to build an app like Airbnb? That’s a crucial question that every business owner has before deciding to develop hotel booking application like Airbnb. After examining the important details about an app like Airbnb, let’s have a look at the steps to develop a similar app:
Create A Plan
If you are planning to create an app like Airbnb, you must develop a strategy before beginning with Airbnb-style app development. It’s a vital process that requires thorough market research, studying competitors, defining your product or service, and learning about the latest technologies, monetization strategies, and business objectives, among others. It is important to follow this process properly to begin further development.
Hire a Mobile App Development Company
If you create an outline and decide on property rental app features, it is important to validate the idea with an on-demand app development company such as CrinPro. It is also important to verify their portfolio, experience, and expertise in developing an app like Airbnb.
Build UI/UX
Users leave the app when they find it uninteresting. It is essential to keep the users in the app, and that requires an excellent user interface and UX. It is important to collaborate with a seasoned UX/UI design agency to develop an engaging and intuitive user interface and experiences for the users.
Go With MVP
The creation of an MVP with basic functions is the best option since it allows you to validate your concept. MVP development costs aren’t more expensive than creating a fully-fledged application, and you will save money. The development of an MVP can help you collect user feedback and reviews, which helps businesses understand user needs and market requirements. MVP comes with basic features, so MVP development costs will not cost you a dime.
Test & Launch
When you’ve finished developing the MVP, you must thoroughly examine it for any issues. While testing the app, QAs will ensure that the app is free from bugs, eliminate any technical issues, and address any functional and programming issues. This helps them create an excellent app similar to Airbnb that can be successful. Once you have received approval from the QAs, it is time to open the app and collect feedback from customers.
Update the App
You must be aware of the operability of your app. To ensure that your app stands out against other apps, such as Airbnb, it is essential to keep it updated regularly to remain competitive in the marketplace. The regular updates help you keep up with the ever-changing needs of users.
Essential Features for an App similar to Airbnb
The Airbnb app is integrated with features specifically designed to meet the particular needs of hosts and customers, and play an important part in the success of the platform. Let’s look at these important features that enhance the experience of all users.
If you are considering investing in custom travel app development like Airbnb, you must know about the three panels of the apps. Let’s have a look at each of them
User Side Panel
Profiles
In the initial stage of creating a profile, you’ll have to gather information on users, including their names, email addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers, and payment options, and then link them to your backend structure to ensure that all information is secured.
Room Details
Users choose rooms based on a variety of aspects. They may look at uploaded images, the views that are visible in the room review and rating, the room description, the location in the building, room rental or T&C. They may also make the choice based upon the host’s reviews, in addition to other elements like the duration of stay, services offered, as well as the possibility of paying on the premises.
Therefore, it is crucial to have your room detail interface in place.
Map Incorporation
Another thing you should not overlook when considering the cost of hotel reservation app development like Airbnb is the Maps integration. Maps are the sole method to allow users to select their preferred holiday destination. The goal is to make the map integration so robust that even the most remote locations are fetched by the application.
Messaging
Receiving and sending messages is an essential aspect of apps like Airbnb. Alongside giving hosts and guests the ability to stay connected via messages, you’ll need to offer an option to push notifications to inform hosts and guests of replies to their messages.
Invitation to Friends
Airbnb-like apps let users invite their friends to join them and can be a successful method of marketing your mobile application. Use this option to invite your contacts via messaging, social media, or email.
Registration
Registration is one of the most important aspects to consider to create travel app like Airbnb.
While it’s normal to ask users to input all details themselves, it’s more efficient to allow them to sign up/log in using social media accounts.
Wide Filter Options
One of the most impressive advantages of the app is its filtering feature. It offers users a wide range of filters, including property type, range, date, and precision area. Users are also given the option to input their own preferences and make their own decisions based on those.
Translation
With the help of Google Translate, users can translate all property descriptions on the listing into their own language. By making use of this effective method for localization, an app like Airbnb will be able to reach a wider range of local users and boost engagement rates significantly.
Backend Implementation
The server-side part of the Hotel booking system architecture is among the most difficult milestone of the development process, particularly when the app has multiple users communicating with each other and transferring payments in real-time. The backend development in this regard needs to be very careful and thorough to ensure that the hotel app user experience design is seamless and the app functions precisely as intended.
Add to Favorites
Another aspect to keep an eye out for when estimating the cost of creating Airbnb-style apps on iOS and Android is the addition of the ability to add favourite properties. This feature allows guests to save the accommodation for future booking or to narrow down their choices from the various options.
Multiple Settings Option
The settings you give users include a variety of options, including profile edit, notification preference, the selected payment method, and the option to change the wishlist. If you can offer more choices to your customers, they will feel more comfortable working with your app. However, at the same time, adding more features will also raise the price of developing a hotel booking mobile app like Airbnb.
Admin Side Panel
Listing Management
This feature assists admins in streamlining management of listings by quickly approving or denying the creation of new listings, changing existing listings, or managing their visibility across platforms.
Analytics and Reporting
Utilizing tools for reporting and analytics, Admin can gain invaluable insights through thorough analytics and reporting, enabling data-driven decision-making and strategic planning to maximize the performance of their business.
User Management
This feature enables streamlined user management, giving full accessibility to user profiles and providing a user-friendly control over the platform’s access.
Payment Management
This feature provides Admins with total access to the financial transactions of their platform. Administrators can manage transactions, see transactions, and manage the payment methods that are available to users, providing the security and transparency of the payment process.
Host-Side
Availability Management
Hosts can manage their property’s availability by adjusting calendars, removing dates when the property isn’t available, and then adjusting prices according to demand or seasonal changes.
Guest Communication
Hosts can be in contact with guests, respond to questions, provide further details about the property, and provide suggestions for nearby attractions and other activities.
Cleaning and Maintenance
Hosts can schedule cleaning services, handle the maintenance of their property, and ensure that the premises are maintained and clean for their incoming guests.
Listing Creation
Hosts can publish and create a listing of properties by uploading images and writing descriptions, indicating the amenities they offer, setting the rules for their property, and pricing their lodging.
Reservation Requests
Hosts are notified and can read and respond to guest requests for reservations by accepting, denying, or negotiating the terms of booking.
Check-in Instructions
Hosts will provide complete instructions on how to check in and directions to the property to ensure a pleasant check-in experience for guests.
Financial Management
To keep track of how their listings perform, hosts can monitor their earnings, view payment transaction history, monitor payouts, and access financial reports through the app.
Cost of Developing an App like Airbnb
Hotel booking app development cost depends on various factors including development, design, and testing, as well as ongoing maintenance. Design costs, including branding, UI/UX design, and logo design, usually vary from $5,000 to $15,000. Development costs, including the backend and frontend development, can range between $25,000 and $40,000 based on the project complexity and the technology stack used. Testing costs, which are crucial to the assurance of functionality and performance, are estimated between $5,000 and $10,000.
Maintenance costs for ongoing maintenance, which include hosting for servers, updates, and bug fixes, range between $5,000 and $10,000 per year. Therefore, the overall cost to build a hotel booking app like Airbnb is between $40,000 and $60,000. It’s important to remember that the figures may be subject to change based on the specifics of the project, geographic considerations, and other features or specifications.
How an App like Airbnb Earns Money?
When you invest in something, you’ll get a positive return on your investment. It’s the standard approach of all businesses. If you invest money in vacation rental app development like Airbnb, you expect a return on your investment.
To earn an ROI, you need to make your mobile app as successful as Airbnb. Monetizing simply means implementing various methods to earn revenue from your mobile app.
We have therefore given you several proven monetizing models that you can employ to increase the value of your app and earn money from it. The monetization models are as they are:
Premium Listing
It is possible to list luxurious accommodation and properties with the tag “Premium. Customers pay more to book these rooms, and hosts pay additional costs to list their properties in the “Premium” category.
By using this model, it is possible to earn income from premium customers and hosts.
Ads
This method allows you to show relevant ads for various brands and charge them accordingly. It’s a resounding monetization method used by a variety of Stay-in-home applications.
Commission
You can earn a fee from hosts and guests on each successful booking. It’s the most commonly used method by various accommodation booking applications, and even by Airbnb.
Listing Fees
Another method of earning money through an app, such as Airbnb, can be to collect listing fees from hosts to include their properties on your app.
Collaborations
Last but not least, Collaboration with local companies is a different way to monetize your business to earn extra revenue. You could partner with local businesses by offering services that your customers may need.
For example, you could cooperate with a local taxi booking service and provide taxis for guests at an additional cost.
The Key Takeaway
The modern world offers us plenty of choices: which places to visit, what mode of transport to select, and, most importantly, where to stay. The travel experience has never been more convenient than it is now. Airbnb is also a major factor in the ease of traveling and has provided accommodation to suit every need.
This sounds like a good business concept to succeed in a world where everything can be completed with smartphones. However, it’s difficult to create an app, and you’ll need to work with a professional hotel booking app development company to create an app like Airbnb.
Think of an innovative feature that is worth the investment while developing a travel app like Airbnb. Be sure to think about the two main beneficiaries: Hosts and travelers. It is important to realize that by simply making sure that their interests are protected, you’ve already gained half the fight!
FAQs
How does Airbnb function to accommodate guests?
Airbnb’s app lets guests sign up and find the property they’re searching for at a specific location on a map or by using filters. The guest can inquire about the exact location. Once the host accepts, payments are completed after confirmation of the booking.
How much does it costs to build a travel app like Airbnb?
The average travel app development cost depends on several factors, including the level of complexity, the number of features it offers, and the location of the travel app development company. The cost for creating an app like Airbnb, with minimal features for one platform, ranges from $15,000 to $20,000. For a more complex application with advanced features and support for multiple platforms, the cost can be $ 50,000 or more.
How long it takes to develop an app like Airbnb?
Similar to cost, the average time required for travel mobile app development depends on various factors, including the level of complexity of the application, the required features, the number of screens needed to develop and design, and the tech stack you choose, among others. If you outsource a reliable tour and travel app development company, then their expertise, knowledge, skills, and efficiency will affect the development timeframe.
