How we managed to build and maintain 16 apps for a travel agency
About the Client
Tourshunter A-Club is an East European travel agency employing over 150 agents. They co-brand with several inbound tourism companies and well-known tour operators, including TUI.
The agency has multiple channels for acquiring bookings. Prior to 2018, their main focus was on their website, but they then decided to shift their marketing activities to mobile, recognizing its huge potential.
Challenges
In 2019, the client asked Zoftify to address critical issues on their mobile platform. Their apps had poor store ratings (3.9 on iOS and 3.8 on Android) due to bugs, a low crash-free rate of 91%, and the absence of much-needed features.
Additionally, they had 4 separate mobile apps with 85% of features common across all. However, when a bug was fixed in one app, the same fix had to be applied and tested four times across the others. Sometimes, fixes in one app were inadvertently omitted in the others, leading to lost customers, extra development time and costs, and missed revenues.
Solution
Zoftify combined these 4 apps into a single codebase, taking into account that each app had its own specifics (e.g. the 'hot tours' feature was not available in every app). We also implemented an auto-deploy process so that all apps were released synchronously, and all fixes and new features were added simultaneously.
We introduced several best practices into the client's app. This included an additional environment for UAT (user acceptance testing), proper analytics, and monitoring tools. These enhancements allowed us to address core bugs and significantly improve code quality, increasing the crash-free rate to 99.95%.
Results
Following our improvements, the client observed immediate positive results. Users stopped reporting frequent crashes and began booking more tours with the agency. Since 2019, the client has shifted their user acquisition strategy from web and partners to mobile apps, which now account for 73% of their bookings across 16 different apps. The system we built is scalable, allowing the client's current development team to add new apps independently.
73%
bookings made via mobile apps
+55%
increase in repeat bookings
99.95%
crash-free rate
What the Client says
Denis B.
CoralTravel, LLC A-CLUB
They are experts in development, backend, and integrations. Our apps have more features, less bugs and significantly improved performance.
Highlights
During our engagement with the client, we have provided assistance in several areas, including mobile app development, back office support, and travel API integrations
Design system
Before collaborating with Zoftify, Tourshunter lacked a comprehensive design system, leading to numerous inconsistencies across their apps. Additionally, whenever a new app was introduced, it needed to adhere to the branding guidelines of the respective tour operator. To address this, we implemented a highly customizable design system tailored for each app.
Inventory providers
Initially, the client relied on a single inventory provider, which proved to be unstable, particularly causing issues with price validation APIs. To address this, we implemented a system that allows the integration of multiple holiday package inventory providers, ensuring a seamless experience.
Static data
Zoftify has successfully integrated static data APIs for hotel listings, enhancing the range of information travelers can access and use to filter hotels. Additionally, we have integrated TripAdvisor ratings for each hotel, adhering strictly to their guidelines.
Our travel-specialized team is ready to assist you. Get in touch today.
A/B testing
To validate several of our hypotheses, we introduced A/B testing into the mobile apps. In total, we conducted nearly 13 tests on various parts of the app. This approach helped us to ensure that the client's conversion rates were optimized, maximizing the performance of their apps.
