Custom app development for assembling and booking package holidays
Appfront builds apps for tour operators and travel organisations that let customers assemble their own trip: a destination or round trip as the base, flights or own transport, overnight stays, transfers, car hire and excursions added on, with live availability and a price that updates as they go, and a booking that is complete in one go. So the customer can book in the evening what currently requires a quote from a member of staff, and the trip sits in your system exactly as it was put together.
What is an app for assembling and booking package holidays?
Many travellers want to put their own trip together: a round trip with an extra night here, a different hotel there, a car hire added and an excursion they've spotted. Many tour operators can only offer that through an enquiry and a quote from a member of staff. An app for assembling and booking package holidays lets the customer do it themselves, using your building blocks, your suppliers and your prices.
Without such an app, the customer requests a quote, which a member of staff puts together the next day, after which the customer asks for three changes and availability has meanwhile shifted. The website shows fixed trips, and anyone wanting something different has to phone or email. In the evening, when most people plan their holiday, there's nobody there. And a trip that is booked online still has to be transferred by hand into the reservation system.
We build custom software because the composition has to match your product: which trips and building blocks you offer, which suppliers you work with and what their integrations provide, how you calculate prices and margins, which rules apply to combinations, and which booking system receives the reservation. A booking module for fixed trips works with a departure date and a price; it cannot handle a trip built up day by day.
Assemble day by day
The customer starts with a base trip or destination and builds by day or by stay: nights added, a different hotel, an excursion, a car hire.
Live availability and pricing
At every choice, availability and price from supplier integrations, with a total price that reflects your margin.
A complete booking
The mandatory information before booking, payment or deposit, the booking with all suppliers, and the trip in your back office exactly as it was assembled.
How we build your app for assembling and booking package holidays
We start with your enquiries: how many custom quotes you produce, how long they take, and how many of them become a booking.
Your trips and building blocks, the suppliers and their integrations, the pricing logic, the rules for combinations and the booking system.
Base trips, accommodation, transport, transfers and extras as building blocks, with the rules for which combinations are possible.
The app in which the customer composes the trip, with live availability and pricing from integrations and your margin.
The information before booking, payment, booking with suppliers, the travel file and handover to the back office, followed by management.
What an app for composing and booking package holidays actually does
The components below feature in almost every tour operator selling composed trips. Which ones you need depends on your product and your suppliers.
Building blocks
Base trips, accommodation, flights, transfers, car hire and excursions as building blocks that the customer combines.
Composition rules
Which building blocks can go together, minimum and maximum nights, travel times between locations, so the customer cannot build an impossible trip.
Live availability
Availability and pricing from supplier integrations, queried at the moment the trip is composed.
Pricing calculation
The total price from supplier rates with your margin, surcharges and discounts, updating with every choice.
Booking and payment
The mandatory information before booking, deposit or full payment, and the booking with all suppliers.
Travel file
The customer sees their trip day by day, with documents and contact details, and the back office receives a complete booking.
For whom we build an app for composing and booking package holidays
The app is intended for tour operators who currently prepare bespoke quotes and want customers to compose their own trips.
Touring holidays and fly-drives
Trips built up day by day. Composing per day and the rules are the core.
Tailor-made trips
Many bespoke requests with lots of changes. The customer composes for themselves what a staff member currently does.
Activity and themed holidays
Trips with excursions, guides and activities. Extras and availability matter most.
Travel organisations with their own accommodation
Your own accommodation combined with third-party transport. Integration with your own inventory is what is needed.
Test your idea first: a working prototype in 1 day
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →Technology and integrations
This page is about the customer composing and booking a trip. For the travel agency's back office, see our page on travel agency software, for business travel see our page on corporate travel management, and for an app for travellers on the road see our page on a travel app. Read about our approach at custom software development.
For the mandatory information and notifications to the traveller, there is our app for the information obligations of the Package Travel Directive.
Why choose Appfront for your app for composing and booking package holidays?
A traveller who wants to book their trip at ten in the evening should be able to. That is what we build for: self-composition, live availability and pricing, and a booking that is complete.
Booking when the customer wants
Customers compose and book in the evening and at weekends, without waiting for a quote.
Less quotation work
What customers compose themselves does not need to be made by a staff member. Your team can focus on the genuinely bespoke requests.
A trip without retyping
The booking reaches the back office complete, with all building blocks and suppliers. No errors when it is taken over.
Security and privacy for an app for composing and booking package holidays
The app holds traveller details, payments and bookings, sometimes including passport data. Access is set by role: the customer sees their own trip, staff see the bookings, and payments go through a payment provider. Data is not kept for longer than necessary.
The app runs in a European data centre, with encrypted storage and daily backups. Supplier integrations use their own keys, which can be revoked per supplier.
Frequently asked questions about an app for building and booking package holidays
Questions tour operators ask before getting started.
It lets the customer compose a trip from your building blocks, such as accommodation, transport, transfers and excursions. At every choice it shows availability and pricing from supplier integrations, enforces the rules for combinations, and creates a complete booking with payment that flows into your back office.
Accommodation, flights, transfers, car rental and excursions, insofar as the suppliers or their distributors offer an integration. For your own inventory or contracts without an integration, the app can work with allocated quantities.
Travel agency software is the back office: files, invoicing and payments to suppliers. This app is the front end where the customer composes and books the trip themselves. The two are integrated; the booking passes from the app to the back office.
Yes. For a package holiday, the traveller must receive the legally required information before booking, including the standard information form. The app shows that information at the right moment and records that it has been done.
Yes, in line with your terms: a deposit at booking and the balance before departure, or the full trip cost. The app keeps track of what has been paid and reminds the customer of the balance.
The partly built trip then becomes a request for a member of staff, with everything the customer has already chosen. The staff member completes the trip rather than starting again.
Check that first. Some reservation systems have a booking module for the website, and that is enough for fixed trips with fixed dates. Custom development makes sense if customers need to build trips day by day, if several suppliers must be queried live, or if your own rules and prices determine the combination.
Customers who build and book their holiday themselves in the evening?
Tell us which trips you offer, which suppliers you work with, and how many bespoke quotes you currently produce. We will show you what building, pricing and booking look like.