8 Travel Agency Software Development Trends to Look Out For

Technological breakthroughs in travel agency software development are redefining modern travel. It has become impossible to imagine travel without technology. Do you remember the last time you purchased a flight ticket from an actual person? 

Today, if a customer wants to plan a trip to a specific destination, they do it through a few simple clicks. All they have to do is log into their travel app, choose a destination, pick an ideal package, and apply discount codes. 

Not only that, they can even take a virtual tour of their room before booking and get AI assistance to make the entire process easy. Now imagine if you could offer this exact same experience to your customers.

What if you could customize travel packages for your customers, provide them with the best offers, and give them services that could convert them into regular customers? With effective travel agency software, you can do exactly that.  

Customers expect a personalized travel experience. Whether it is booking trips, hotels, or a tour of their location, modern customers want technologically driven solutions. 

As a travel agency business owner, your goal isn’t just attracting new customers. It is also retaining existing ones to earn repeat business. The question is how? The answer is through designing exceptional travel agency software. 

The software you build must be intuitive, robust, and futuristic. You must implement the latest tech trends in travel agency software development to offer customers the best inventory, services, experience, and rates. Let’s review some key trends.  

Top Travel Agency Software Trends

• AR/VR 

What if your customers from another country could experience a location or get a virtual tour of your hotel before visiting it? Innovations in immersive technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have made it possible. 

These technologies allow customers to experience a virtual simulation of travel destinations and accommodations. Through AR and VR-based travel agency software, you can provide your customers with immersive experiences through which they can explore and interact with destinations and attractions. 

AR/VR technologies can assist customers with bookings, virtual visits, and reliable navigation in real-time. When customers know what to expect and get an idea of how visually appealing their trip might be, they are able to customize their travel effectively. 

Travel agencies should consider incorporating AR/VR technology in their software to help customers set expectations. 

• AI Chatbots 

Customers will likely have a few questions when interacting with your product. A specialist must always be available to answer customer questions and find solutions. But what happens when several customers want help at the same time? AI chatbots make this process easier.

AI chatbots are a customer-centric approach for communication between your customers and your business. These chatbots use Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning technologies to understand the context of questions asked by customers. They can stimulate human conversations using text and voice interactions. 

AI-powered chatbots make it easy for customers to get answers without contacting customer service. Besides, they are available 24×7. You must consider AI-based chatbots during your travel agency software development to create a proactive customer experience. 

• Metasearch Engines 

Suppose a potential customer is searching for a hotel room at a specific location with specific facilities. A Google search can provide the most relevant results, but it won’t be able to compute a lot of details to offer an accurate result. 

Metasearch engines are essentially tools that send search queries to multiple sources and offer comprehensive results to customers. They organize results in a comprehensive way so that customers are able to access all available options in one place. 

This saves the customer’s time and improves interaction. You must integrate a robust travel search engine into your travel management software. 

• Contact-Free Payments

Contactless payments first became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they have become the preferred mode of payment. It is secure and hassle-free. Moreover, a growing number of financial institutions offer easy-to-use mobile payment applications.

You can offer loyalty rewards to customers like discount coupons, cash-back offers, early-booking chances, and flexible travel opportunities. This can influence booking rates, reviews, and generate a sense of loyalty among customers. 

Hence, implementing a contactless payment feature in travel agency software development is also beneficial from a logistic and marketing standpoint.

• Dynamic Pricing 

Customers booking a flight ticket are of different types. Some may prioritize convenience and comfort, while others prefer minimal costs. How can you fulfill these criteria without compromising revenue? Through the introduction of a dynamic pricing feature in your travel management software. 

Dynamic pricing considers different kinds of customers by gathering and analyzing customer data and travel trends using Artificial Intelligence. These systems create distinct price points for different passengers based on factors like time of flight, time of purchase, sales channel, and seating class. 

• The Internet of Things (IoT)

Imagine if guests could interact with their hotel room and customize its settings. Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), it is possible. IoT is a series of sensor-based connected devices that exchange information over the internet.

Hotels can turn customers’ rooms into ‘smart rooms’ through IoT-enabled applications. Customers can control their room’s temperature, music, lighting, and entertainment preferences using an in-room tablet. 

You can gather customer data such as preferences and history to boost your marketing efforts. Deploying IoT as a travel management software strategy eliminates the need for manual intervention and makes the entire process more fluid. 

• Omnichannel Applications

Technologically adept customers prefer planning their trips on their own. However, when given multiple options, selecting one can become confusing. This is where you can use omnichannel strategies to simplify customer experience. 

By collaborating with the right travel agency software development company, you can build hassle-free omnichannel applications. Customers can search, select, book, make payments, etc., and successfully plan their trip. 

For instance, you can use WhatsApp to send customers flight confirmations, check-in notifications, boarding passes, flight status, and other updates. 

• Big Data 

Enhancing personalization improves customer experience. Big Data includes large data sets that cannot be processed using conventional methods. The Travel industry collects Big Data on a daily basis. How can it use this data to boost revenue?

Travel agencies can gather data on customer preferences, favorable rates, peak travel times, and other information to improve customer service. 

For instance, internal data such as previous occupancy rates and revenues can be combined with external data such as local activities and flight lists, which can assist you in forecasting sales. Thus, with Big Data, you can make evidence-based decisions. 

For e.g., travel operators can collect data on how customers behave based on factors like whether they visit duty-free shops or rent a car, etc, in order to plan services, resources and enhance customer experience. 

By using Big Data, businesses can improve customer relationships and marketing efforts. 

Why Choose Custom Travel Agency Software Development

Custom travel software development allows you to build an application with features designed to suit your individual business needs. Key benefits of developing custom travel software include: 

• Business Integration: Your travel product must seamlessly integrate with your existing business model and marketing efforts. This is only possible through custom software development. 
• Access to Data: Custom travel software development provides you access to real-time traveler data and travel trends, customer behavior, preferences, etc., which is crucial to business strategy. 
• Automation: To stay ahead of competitors, you need to implement automation-based solutions designed for your target audience. Custom travel software development can automate customer service, reservations, ticket sales, etc. 

Developing custom travel software has multiple benefits. The Travel and Tourism domain continues to grow constantly. Consequently, the number of companies offering travel agency software development has grown. 

As a result, it can be difficult to choose the best company to build your travel management software. The section below summarizes the importance of travel agency software and provides a reference for one of the leading travel software development companies. 

Deliver Tailored Travel Management Software

Technology-driven solutions have replaced traditional travel practices with high-tech solutions. To stand out in this competitive market, you must capitalize on the latest trends and offer an immersive digital experience to your customers. 

Your travel software must be feature-rich, perform fast data processing, be technologically advanced, and successfully meet client demands. It must offer customers smooth payment methods, AR/VR assistance, AI-guided chatbots and services, and user-friendly booking systems.

Remember that personalization and automation are important aspects of your travel agency software. To gain an industry edge, your software must integrate the latest technology and future trends to deliver rich customer experiences and appeal to a modern customer. 

You must hire a leading travel agency software development company that can build customized travel solutions. TRooTech Business Solutions has been developing groundbreaking travel booking software solutions. 

Over the past several years, TRooTech has helped equip the Travel industry with AI-infused solutions and data-driven capabilities to streamline operations for travel companies, agencies, tour managers, booking platforms, and more. 

Collaborate with TRooTech and take advantage of automation to build the best-performing Travel software solutions.