You could develop your own app...but why would you?

Nothing beats face to face customer service, however more and more guests expect easy access to information digitally, leading many businesses to develop their own apps to meet this expectation

Mobile apps already exist for many of the larger holiday park groups, but what you can do with the app varies greatly. Some provide basic information such as guest books, event schedules and park maps but others are completely changing the way holiday parks go about their business.

Imagine being able to directly connect with your customers whilst they are on your park – e.g. allow guests to login and see their booking details, provide contact-less check-in, open their lodge with a smartphone key, provide personalised things to do and enable bookings of a restaurant table or activity.

When it comes to building an app for your business, really there are three options:

1. Build it yourself
2. Use an existing provider or agency
3. The Holidaymaker App

Think of an app in a similar way to your park booking system – you can build your own or you can buy into a solution from one of the main providers.

The cost of creating your own app will depend on multiple factors – the type of app you’re building, the features you’re implementing, and the development method will have the most significant impact on the price.

A bespoke app could cost upwards of ￡15k-￡20k and the cost will rise significantly as you continue adding features, functionality, and complexity to the app. So, it is often more cost-effective to buy into an app solution that already exists.

You also need to think about whether you implement a native app or a simpler web app.

• Native apps are software applications that the user needs to download and install on their phone. Native apps have the advantage of being faster, use all the features of a phone and more efficient, but they do require the user to regularly download updates. Web apps will update themselves. Users download these apps from the online marketplaces such as the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
• Web apps on the other hand, are software applications that run in the phone browser – but without needing to install anything on your phone. They are often simpler to implement, but Web apps need an active internet connection to run, whereas mobile apps may work offline.

The final question to think about is whether to build for Android or for iOS? The quick answer is that you need to build for both platforms. If you create an app for one and not the other then you are neglecting a significant group of your guests.

The Holidaymaker App

This is where the Holidaymaker App was born, working across both devices, we take a guest-first approach. This comes from our existing expertise within the industry, we are not new to this market. Our history of working with some excellent holiday parks to develop websites and plan their marketing strategy has helped us have a unique insight.

We are the UK’s leading independent holiday park app, customer-focused, with a clear mission, to improve the digital guest experience by enhancing your existing customer service. We add an additional layer, complimenting and working alongside your staff to free their heavy workloads and save you money in the process.

Developing your own app through Holidaymaker isn’t expensive. Our monthly subscriptions and initial set up costs are a fraction of the amount it costs to develop your own app. Not only that, but as the app grows and more features are developed, you benefit from this too.

The all-in-one system ensures that you only must update content once, rather than logging into multiple systems or copying from your website to the app. We can even pull your events directly from your events system to the app!

Holidaymaker is incredibly flexible, we integrate with many management and software systems, as well as CMS platforms and are adding more all the time. We are happy to work with you to meet your requirements, so don’t worry if you can’t see yours on the list.

These are just a few of our features and integrations that we offer, but there is so much more possible with the Holidaymaker App and we are always working with clients to add more.

SEE IT IN ACTION

To arrange your demo of Holidaymaker, simply get in touch with the link below

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