The travel industry is broad, stretching from transportation and logistics to lodging and tourist attractions. The travel industry has been one of the major contributors to global GDP since 2006. The United States is expected to generate the biggest travel industry revenue, a staggering $190.40 billion in 2023.
Digitization via travel apps is doing wonders for the travel and tourism industry. Major benefits include an increase in workflow efficiency and improved customer service. Technology helps speed up tasks like check-ins, bookings, etc., via mobile applications. Advanced technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence help offer an enhanced user experience via AI-based chatbots, voice controls, VR-based location tours, etc.
Developing an innovative travel app is an excellent idea if you plan to invest in the travel industry.
Businesses in every sector now rely on mobile apps to promote and maintain their services. The number of mobile apps is growing, and so is the number of mobile app developers in the market. Hiring a good travel app developer could be quite a challenge for you. However, with the right hiring approach, you can easily hire competent developers for your project.
You might think of hiring a freelance app developer to help with your project. This is a risky option. Much better is to choose the reliable option of partnering with an experienced software app development company like DevTeam.Space to hire a travel app developer. We will get back to this point in a bit.
First, you need to know the skills requirements for hiring the best travel app developer. An app developer needs to have the following skills:
Primary Travel App Developer Skills
The primary skills of a travel app developer are as follows:
- Proficiency in web development technologies like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5 to build a hybrid travel app;
- Expertise in JS libraries and frameworks, such as jQuery Mobile, React Native, Ionic, etc.;
- Proficiency in Java or Kotlin programming languages for native Android app development;
- Familiarity with Android development tools, such as Android SDKs, Android Studio, AVD manager, etc.;
- Experience in Android app testing frameworks and tools such as Espresso;
- Proficiency in Swift programming language for native iOS development;
- Experience in iOS development tools like Xcode IDE, Cocoapods dependency manager, XCTest, etc.;
- Knowledge of mobile application architecture patterns such as MVC and MVVM;
- knowledge of SQL databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.;
- Knowledge of NoSQL databases, such as MongoDB, CouchDB, etc.;
- Knowledge of DevOps practices such as manual task automation, continuous testing, continuous delivery, continuous monitoring, etc.;
- Expertise in DevOps tools such as GitHub, Kubernetes, Jenkins, etc.;
- Understanding of agile app development methodologies, such as Scrum, Kanban, etc.
Other Software Development Skills
Travel app developers should have the following skills too:
1. Application Security Skills
You need app developers with the expertise to develop a secure travel app. They need to know the prevalent cybersecurity threats such as data breaches, SQL injections, and phishing attacks. They should also be familiar with preventive security measures such as data encryption, database security, authorization technique, etc., to build a secure travel app for your target audience.
2 .API Development Skills
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You need developers familiar with API development and testing. They should be experts in using REST API architecture and GraphQL query language to build robust and secure API endpoints for your application. These developers should be familiar with API design and development tools such as Postman and Swagger Hub.
3. Knowledge of Cloud Computing
You will need app developers with thorough knowledge of cloud computing. They need to be familiar with various types of clouds, like private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid clouds.
Moreover, your developers should have expertise in multiple cloud services, such as Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, etc. They should be familiar with leading cloud service providers and their mobile development services, such as Amplify by Amazon Web Services.
4. Code Review Skills
In addition to developers who can write high-quality code, you need senior developers who can perform detailed code reviews. Developers with sufficient app development experience can effectively review code for bugs and errors. They ensure that the app code meets all functional and non-functional requirements.
5. Communication and Team Skills
Good developers need interpersonal skills to work effectively in a team. Some soft skills required in an app developer include the following:
6. Good Communication
Developers should have good communication skills, as developers work with abstract concepts and technical solutions. Good verbal and written communication skills help developers communicate effectively with stakeholders and end-users.
7. Commitment
The mobile travel app market is very challenging because there are new technological trends to incorporate into your travel app development solutions. User requirements also frequently change. You would need developers motivated to meet all these requirements and deliver a high-performance application.
8. Passion for Excellence
There are many travel mobile applications already available in the market for users. You need developers dedicated to delivering an excellent app that engages and retains users via its innovative features that are powered by the latest cutting-edge technologies.
9. Empathy
Empathy is essential for app developers to understand the app’s end-user perspectives. You require developers able to understand users’ expectations.
How to Find the Best Travel App Developer?
Now that you know the skills required of your travel app developers (please note, these will be specific to your project requirements and not general as above), you can start hiring the best developers for your travel app project. You need to follow the following steps:
1. Decide the right kind of platform to hire app developers
You might think freelance developers will work fine for your travel app development project. However, this approach works only for simple software projects. Mobile application development is often a complex process. Freelance developers pose limitations here.
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Firstly, freelancers work on multiple projects and so consider each one on a part-time basis. Consequently, they cannot give their maximum time and effort to your project. Moreover, freelance platforms are saturated with a huge number of software developers with varied skills and work experience. Vetting the best freelance developer for your software project is a huge task. Freelance platforms do not offer any assistance in this or with interviewing freelancers either.
In the case of a judgment lapse while hiring freelancers or in the case you find your freelancer leaving your project midway, there is not much you can do except to bear the loss and again undergo the time-consuming process of finding a suitable freelance developer.
Team management is also very challenging for freelancers, especially if they are in different time zones. You are solely responsible for maintaining effective communication between all team members, which can be challenging.
In contrast to hiring freelance developers for your travel app development project, you are much better off if you opt for the more reliable alternative of partnering with a travel mobile app development company.
A credible software development company, like DevTeamSpace, has expert software developers with experience in mobile app development across multiple industries. All our software developers undergo a thorough vetting process before they become part of our dev teams.
Moreover, we assign an account manager, who is a senior developer, to manage all of our software developers working on your project, which makes team management easier for you.
All our developers follow an AI-powered agile development process which gives you real-time insights into your app development process and helps you maintain close communication with the developers working on your project.
We also sign an NDA as a first step with our clients to uphold all their desired privacy requirements. Hire motivated and experienced software developers from DevTeam.Space for your next travel app development project.
2. Interview the shortlisted candidates.
You have decided on the hiring platform and posted your app developer requirements. You have likely received multiple resumes from software developers. The next step is to shortlist developers for interviews. You should do this while focusing on your specific skills requirements.
Conduct interviews to assess the technical experience of the candidates. You should ask questions beyond theoretical concepts. We suggest you discuss in detail their past projects and assess how they handled complex coding scenarios, etc.
3. Provide detailed information about your travel app development project.
The final step is to onboard your developer. A smooth onboarding process will help any incoming developers to quickly start contributing to the project. You should start by introducing new developers to the rest of the team. Next, you will need to discuss, in detail, your travel app project with them. This will help them understand the end goal and contribute effectively.
New developers will also require access to relevant project documentation and code repositories. You should share the project plan with them, including milestones and deliverables. Each developer should be clear on their role. This means that you also need to establish accountability and work completion timeframes.
Tips to Hire Travel App developers
Some tips to hire the best app developers include the following:
1. Hire developers with a range of skills and experience
You might think junior or mid-level developers are enough to develop a travel app. Mid-level developers are easier to find and hire in the market. However, complex projects like travel app development require developers with mixed experience and expertise levels.
You need senior developers with sufficient experience in app development to build a secure, performant, and feature-rich travel app.
Their software development experience will help you avoid many obstacles in the travel app development process and choose the best development approach. A robust and scalable travel app will help you retain users and increase its overall chances of success.
2. Hire a competent team leader.
Hire expert travel app developers for your next project
You are likely looking to hire remote developers for your travel app project. One advantage is that you can hire remote developers from a global talent pool. Therefore, you do not have to compromise on skill levels.
However, remote team management can be challenging. It is advisable to hire an experienced senior developer as your remote team leader. This will help you in effective project management. Please note that if you hire from a reputable software development company like DevTeam.Space, you will get or should insist on an account manager who helps manage their developers for you.
3. Look for a flexible software development service provider.
Look for flexibility in hiring models when looking for app development companies. Fixed-price models usually work with simple app projects with fixed specification requirements.
You will likely face frequently changing requirements with a travel app project. A time-and-materials model would help you scale your app development team more easily. We suggest you thoroughly analyze models offered by any candidate software development company to ensure you adopt the model best suited for you.
Examples of coding questions to ask during the interview when hiring travel app developers
You need to assess the hands-on skills of app developers during the interview. Some example questions include the following:
1. What is Copy on Write in Swift?
It is used to optimize memory usage. When multiple callers want to access the same resource, they can point to the same resource. The state of the resource remains the same unless a caller modifies the state of its copy of the resource.
2. How is automatic reference counting different from garbage collection in Objective-C?
In ARC, no background process deallocates the objects asynchronously at the run time compared to garbage collection. ARC also does not handle reference cycles automatically.
3. When would you use the Elvis operator in Kotlin?
Elvis operator (?:) receives two input values. It returns the first argument if it is not null or returns the second argument.
Submit a Project with Zero Risk
Travel application development is a complex project. You need highly experienced developers to undertake a travel app development project successfully. Why hire anything but the best app developers in the market?
DevTeam.Space is a community of field-expert software developers experienced in developing software applications for the travel industry. All our developers are vetted for their expertise and managed by senior developers.
If you plan to partner with our competent developers, send us your initial travel app specifications via this quick form. One of our account managers will get back to you to discuss how our developers can help you build a world-class travel application.