Introduction
Travel and Tourism business is one of the booming sectors of the recent years. The customer base for this industry keeps increasing every year. Tourism boards are spread across domestically and Internationally. As every country has a tourism board, there are smaller divisions for each state of the country. They actively market and promote the different vacation and holiday spots in the region. Tourists, especially international travelers, look towards these tourism boards and other travel resources for guidance.
Travel Portal Development
Travel Portals are the widely used Travel Resource by travel planners. Developing a travel portal offers travelers an integrated solution to cover all their travel needs. Travel portals collate data and specifics about many parameters like hotel bookings, airline passages and freights, car rentals and other related information. Developing a travel portal is essential for any travel business. The business should design the travel portals in such a way that the visitors are guided on every step of the planning process.
For instance, if a traveler is browsing through the travel portal for a holiday destination, then he should also see the different prices of travel and accommodation options. This is something that every business keeps in mind during Travel Portal Development. The travel portals then directs the user to secured payment gateways where the user can confirm the tickets and bookings. One the payment has been done, the travel portal is responsible to keep the user updated about the travel plans. Automated messaging systems keep the traveler informed about departure and arrival timings. SMS gateways are becoming increasing common and many businesses follow this trend during travel portal development.
Travel Portals are essentially the main travel resource for anyone. Keeping aside the travel planning, travel resources also helps in estimating a trip budget and gives the traveler an idea of what to expect during the outing.
What are Travel Resources?
There are many online resources available for planning a trip. Many frequent travelers use these resources to chalk out their vacation plans. These resources can provide travelers with a background of the place, travel cost estimates and information about the accommodation. Additional information like car rentals, popular attractions and trending events in the area is also available on these web resources. In addition to this, many travelers also share their reviews on these online mediums. These reviews can give you a good insight into your plans. Some of the well-known travel planning resources that are available online include
- TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a common name quoted among travelers and backpackers. TripAdvisor offers a great deal of information about the travel destination. This web resource also offers suggestions on popular destinations. It also offers custom searches for adventure seekers, art lovers, pilgrimage and holy places, renowned monuments. Along with the destination suggestions, TripAdvisor also offers flight bookings.
The most prominent feature of TripAdvisor is the hotel booking facility. TripAdvisor has a huge database of hotels spanning many destinations. One has to simply enter the check-in and check-out dates, select the number of rooms needed, and the number of guests on the trip. TripAdvisor also has a customer rating system for the hotels along with customer reviews.
There are a variety of tools and filters to custom plan your trip. One can select the hotels within a specified price range. Look for specific amenities like free WiFi, parking space, and pool. Additional luxury filters are Golf Course, Meeting rooms, and conference rooms, banquet halls etc. This website also provides information on nearby hotels and restaurants, pubs and coffee shops.
- Kayak
Kayak is probably one of the best online resources for information on flight trips. It has a powerful search engine designed to show flight details. This engine collects the data from most of the major airlines. This gives an apt information about the flight timings and accurate flight prices. The user can choose the flight of his choice and the one that fits the trip budget. The website has some innovative tools for the users. One such tool is the price trend feature. This tool compares historical costs and suggests the possible price changes over the next week.
The Map feature is another innovative tool that is part of the online resources. This feature is designed mainly for the undecided travelers. The map shows a gamut of flights to different travel destinations. If the vacation plan is flexible, then it can help you build and cost-effective plan.
Kayak also offers information on hotel bookings and accommodation rates. It is also a platform where many vendors advertise travel and vacation packages at attractive rates. Users can also book rental cars from this website.
- Yapta
Yapta is another fantastic web resource for travel planning. Yapta uses a similar search engine to Kayak for its flight information. This engine provides accurate and real-time information on flights. The user can compare different flights and destination and save this information in the trip tracker. The user can save multiple trips and track each one of them separately. The flight tracker continues to monitor the prices even after the flight has been booked. This tracker also gives notifications in case the prices drop. It also gives information whether the user is eligible for a refund or credit.
- Skyscanner
As the name suggests, Skyscanner offers many dedicated resources to flight selection and planning. The search engine supports many parameters. Some of the parameters for searches include by travel date and destination, multiple flights from a specific airport or city, flight prices at a different time of the year. Generally, other web resources include only deluxe or executive flight operators that are well known. Skyscanner also includes many economy flight operators. So some of the searches from Skyscanner might show the lowest flight prices. All in all, Skyscanner is an excellent resource for international and regional flights. Skyscanner also has a mobile application for smartphone devices. This application is easy to use and designed to operate on the go and supports both Android and iOS versions.
- Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn is a travel resource dedicated to travelers visiting Europe. It provides all the information on trains across the continent like train timings, en route stopovers, train routes, arrival and departure times. Deutsche Bahn is rated higher by travelers in comparison to the local train websites.