Is a Dedicated Mobile App Worth the Hotel Hype? Direct Bookings & Loyalty

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Hey everyone in the Shopify Community!

I’ve got a burning question that I’m sure many service-based businesses wrestle with, especially those of us in hospitality. We’re running a small-to-midsize hotel, and we’re obsessed with improving two things: increasing direct bookings (to escape those steep OTA commissions!) and building genuine guest loyalty.

Our website is solid and mobile-optimized, but I keep circling back to the idea of a dedicated mobile app.

The Core Dilemma: Is the App Worth the Hype?

I see the potential for an app to be an incredibly powerful tool for the entire guest journey:

  • Pre-Stay: Commission-free, easy booking with customized packages.

  • During Stay: Digital room key, instant service requests (housekeeping, room service), and check-in/out without talking to a desk. This is where we can really enhance the experience.

  • Post-Stay/Loyalty: Crucially, using push notifications to deliver super personalized offers and re-booking reminders—something a standard email blast just can’t match.

The Elephant in the Room: The ROI Challenge

Building and constantly maintaining an app is a huge undertaking. My biggest fear is investing $X,000 only to have it sit unused. My main worry: Does a single hotel have enough “stickiness” for a guest to download and keep its app?

I’d love to hear some real-world input:

  1. To the Hotel Owners/Managers: If you took the plunge, what was the actual Return on Investment (ROI) you saw in terms of increased direct bookings and repeat stays? Did it meet expectations?

  2. To the Travelers/Customers: What specific feature (like a digital key, or pre-ordering breakfast) would make you definitely download and use a hotel’s app during your stay?

  3. To the Tech Gurus: If going full custom is too much, are there any affordable, high-quality white-label or low-code platforms you recommend for the hotel industry to test this concept?

Any success stories, cautionary tales, or technical insights are hugely welcome! Thanks for helping me think this through!

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Depends. How nice is your hotel? Is it good enough to warrant an app? Is it even popular enough? Or is it bug infested with needles everywhere like the hotels around SeaTac?

Overall, an app sounds nice and all, but investment could probably be better spent improving the physical customer experience and comfortability.

With the vast majority of hotel bookings going through the travel agencies like hotels.com, where hotels are the most competitive, building a dedicated app sounds like a far distant thought.

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Unless your serious about engaging someone to handle this, posting engagement content in a general purpose ecommerce forum about some specific industry vertical hypotheticals is yelling in an ever filling sewer.

Posts like this boil down to: how make more money.
So they fail from the start. And all the sub details are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY beyond the scope of the forums.

Have at any point actual customers asked for an app and given a reason for it; that staff didn’t give them.
Has anyone ever walked up to you and shoved a competitors app in your face and told you that’s why the are staying somewhere else.
Have you asked customers at all. etc etc etc ad nauseum.
That’s the best case, the worst case still means doing the actual research in actually relevant places for a specific industry: conventions, forums, publications etc .

Otherwise this is all toothless pie in the sky maybe sorta kinda one day possibly tail spinning looking for justification of hope instead of making a plan.

There is never a guarantee of ROI.
It’s a binary decision you either have the will and wherewithal to do this or don’t.

ick :nauseated_face:
Apps are like coffins, just because you build it doesn’t mean potential customers want it.

Lot of couched keywords that just indicate there’s no real serious will to do this.
Completely undermines investment fears by creating an almost self fulfilling prophecy; pennywise pound shy.