The travel industry has witnessed a humongous growth during the last decade and mobile technology has significantly contributed to this growth. This is because travelers love the ease of searching and booking tours on the go. When it comes to the businesses investing in travel app development, there is a huge competition out there because almost every player has a mobile presence today. The only way to stand apart and be ahead of the competition is by catering high-end features with innovative technologies.
Augmented Reality is one that is emerging as the key differentiator in this context because this technology can singularly transform the user experiences to a major extent. Instead of replacing the real world elements as the Virtual Reality technology does, AR overlays digital components over real ones to provide a rich and appealing visual experience of the existing places. Not saying much more about AR, let us see the potential it has for taking the travel-based mobile apps to the next level.
Scope of AR in the travel industry
The travel industry is an extensive one, covering aspects such as transportation, accommodation, local transit, hospitality, tourist destinations, and much more. When a business connects with an app development company for creating their app, they expect them to cover all these aspects. AR technology has a good scope of use in enhancing each of the aspects of the industry. Let us go through the following use cases to understand how.
Hotels and accommodations
AR technology can empower hotel businesses to deliver information to the potential customers in an interactive manner, with 360-degree visual tours and display of 3D views of various amenities they offer. This can lead to an increase in demand for bookings by the customers as they are more confident about the property. Further, they can also improve the in-house services by enabling the guests to use AR-powered apps to navigate the property and use the amenities that are available there.
Cafes, restaurants, and bars
In addition to refining the accommodation experiences, AR travel apps can serve extensive advantages to hospitality players such as cafes, restaurants, and bars as well. These eating and drinking joints can attract customers with interactive menus that present a 360-degree view of food and drinks along with their ingredients. The apps can also help the users to locate and reach the nearby places easily through immersive navigation.
Tourist destinations
Another important use case of AR in this industry relates to the interactive tours of tourist destinations. AR-powered apps can facilitate augmented tours of ancient locations, buildings, and landmarks to know more about them. Just pointing the app towards the location can present a visual of the entire history and events that took place there to create an alluring experience for the travelers.
Navigation
The Augmented Reality technology ensures that travelers are never lost in a foreign city or remote location, irrespective of the barriers of language. Rather than having to ask for directions, tourists can access AR-based navigation apps to reach their destinations easily. These apps have special digital features such as arrows and pointers that make it easy to follow directions. Additionally, they can combine the device camera with Google Maps to make the experiences even better.
Read Also: Ways Augmented Reality Apps Are Transforming Automotive Industry
Local transit
Another aspect of travel that AR enhances is local transit. Things become much more convenient and safe even in foreign locations as these apps provide interactive map views of routes, traffic, next destinations, and best places to travel in the area. Besides using them for commuting in cabs, tourists can also leverage them while traveling via public transport. In fact, AR apps may even eliminate the need for engaging tourist guides in the future as everything piece of information that tourists need will be available in smartphones.
How AR apps can take travel experiences to the next level?
Now that enough has been said about the scope of AR in various aspects of the travel industry, the next question will be about the way these apps can take travel experiences to the next level. While they have a lot to offer to the travelers, these apps do much for the travel businesses as well. They open opportunities in more than one way. Let us see how.
Improved marketing and advertising
AR-based advertising and marketing have the potential to drive decisions by travelers because they can visualize properties and amenities in a far more interactive manner. The technology empowers the travel companies with more creative narratives, with virtual tours that offer lifelike experiences to the app users. Beyond influencing the booking decisions, AR-based marketing strategies enhance the trust if the existing and prospective customers towards the hotels and tour operators that they come back for more.
Enhanced convenience and comfort
Timely availability of information on the go can make all the difference to travelers’ experiences, which is something that mobile apps make possible. They enhance the convenience and comfort of the users, right from the booking tickets and accommodations to find the best destinations to eat drink, and shop, navigate the popular tourist destinations, find their way in the city, and more. AR apps literally serve like a 24/7 guide, that too at the user’s fingertips.
More enjoyable holidays
With the integration of 3D models of historical places and destinations, AR apps guarantee more enjoyable holidays for travelers. The users can avail immersive experiences while enjoying a travel through time. Beyond just making historical visits memorable, the technology works for other tourist spots such as theme parks and zoos as well.
Push Notifications and gamification
Another reason why the travel industry literally revers AR apps is that they offer advanced features such as push notifications and gamification. Since it is possible to connect AR with iBeacons, hotels and travel businesses can leverage the technologies to send location-based push notifications to the users. AR-based gamification can be used to create attractive games such as treasure hunt which the users thoroughly enjoy.
Conclusion
The potential of AR technology is huge, to an extent that it can unleash whole new opportunities for businesses. With enhanced travel experience they offer, these apps are capable of expanding the customer base of hotels, booking services, local restaurants, and all other providers in the industry. In this way, they can propel the growth of the entire industry as a whole. If you want to empower your business with an AR app, collaborating with a professional development partner is the best approach. Mobibiz id a leading iOS and Android app development company that you can trust for creating a top-notch AR-based mobile app for your travel business. Besides knowing the AR technology well enough, we have a rich domain experience in the travel industry. Share your requirements with us and we will create a perfect solution to empower your business.
