The benefits of hotel mobile apps are a hot debate throughout the industry. A sampling of those benefits includes Improved guest satisfaction, more efficient staff interactions, and better communication with guests, all of which increase a hotel’s competitive advantage. Yet, while leveraging mobile to result in increasing guest satisfaction and operational efficiency is a top priority when implementing mobile technology in hotels, increasing revenue through the use of mobile apps can also be a major part of justifying the investment. When used correctly, hotel apps can maximize revenue in order to provide significant ROI.
Mobile Booking
This is the most straightforward method to generate revenue from mobile apps. Allowing for mobile hotel room reservations is a primary source where hotels can create profit. With hotel bookings on smartphones rising, mobile reservations are a lucrative and sensible feature to enable when seeking to generate revenue through a hospitality app.
And booking room reservations don’t have to be the end of it. Hoteliers can also generate revenue by allowing for in-app booking for other hotel amenities, such as hotel spa services, golf or sports activities, restaurant reservations, in-room dining, and more.
Mobile Ads and Marketing
The benefit of guests utilizing a hotel app is that it gives hoteliers the opportunity to market directly to guests through a channel that is always on and always in the palm of a guest’s hand.
Push notifications give hoteliers an increased reach to market their services to their guests and the ability to provide consistent reminders and prompts to app users. Implementing advertisements into a hotel app is also an effective and clever way to generate revenue when done in a way that isn’t disruptive to the user experience. Hoteliers can boost revenue through pay-per-click or banner ads embedded in mobile apps.
Enabling guests to act on these prompts and mobile ads through in-app purchasing features can be very lucrative, as 76 percent of profits from apps stem from these types of purchases.
Third-Party Partnerships
Hotels can take advantage of partnering with local companies to maximize available space through a mobile app. Allowing these partners to seamlessly advertise on the hotel app interface for a fee can generate revenue for you and provide guests with information about relevant services, such as local boutiques. It’s important to select partners that enhance the existing brand image or provide significant benefit to a hotel’s most common demographic of guests, though.
As the landscape of the hospitality industry is shifting to focus more on mobile technology in response to guests who are demanding more sophisticated digital engagement during travel, developing apps that are functional on multiple levels and provide an ROI that offsets investment is growing more important as well.
For more information about how to generate revenue with a hotel app and determine the ROI of hospitality mobile technology, explore our mobile solutions or schedule a demo with a member of our team.
