Concierge app development that gets the front desk off the phone.
Front desks spend half their day fielding calls that guests could handle themselves: wake-up calls, extra towels, taxi bookings, restaurant reservations. The staff answers the same questions on repeat, and requests logged on paper or WhatsApp have no audit trail. International guests with language barriers add another layer of friction on both sides. We build custom digital concierge apps for hotels, resorts, and serviced apartments. Guests submit requests, track status, and communicate with staff from a mobile app or in-room tablet. Operations teams get a full request log, routing to the right department, and real-time visibility across the property. Integrated with Mews, Opera, Apaleo, and other PMS platforms. Multi-language support included.
Guests self-serve room service, housekeeping, taxi bookings, and wake-up calls without calling the front desk.
Every request is logged, routed, and tracked, no paper slips, no WhatsApp threads.
Multi-language support removes the communication barrier for international guests.
PMS integration with Mews, Opera, and Apaleo syncs guest profiles and room data automatically.
9 years, 100+ products shipped, including hospitality platforms for the US, UK, and Ireland.
Built a guest self-service platform with mobile check-in and request management for City Break Apartments. Front desk call volume dropped significantly after launch.
Booking platform · City Break Apartments
3x direct bookings
Redesigned direct booking and self-service flow. 580+ active users within 2 months of rollout.
Guest app · Hotel group
4.8 App Store rating
Built a guest-facing app with service requests, in-app messaging, and PMS integration. Rated 4.8 on the App Store.
Front desk staff fielding the same calls all day for services guests could request themselves?
No way to know which guest requests are outstanding, in progress, or missed?
International guests struggling to communicate needs due to language barriers?
Short answer
RaftLabs builds custom digital concierge apps for hotels, resorts, and serviced apartments in the US, UK, Ireland, and Australia. Guests submit service requests, track status, and message staff from a mobile app or in-room tablet. Apps integrate with Mews, Opera, and Apaleo, include multi-language support, and ship in 8 to 14 weeks at a fixed cost. City Break Apartments: 72+ weekly self check-ins and a 4.8 App Store rating.
Key takeaways
Custom digital concierge apps for hotels and serviced apartments ship in 8 to 14 weeks at a fixed cost.
Integrates with Mews, Opera, Apaleo, and Cloudbeds; custom PMS integration available for other platforms.
Multi-language support is included as a core feature, covering right-to-left languages.
City Break Apartments achieved 72+ weekly self check-ins and 580+ active users within 2 months of rollout.
A hotel guest app built by RaftLabs holds a 4.8 App Store rating.
9 years and 100+ products shipped, including hospitality platforms for the US, UK, and Ireland.
Trusted by
The front desk phone that never stops ringing for towels.
It's 9pm and the front desk is on the phone: an extra pillow to 412, a taxi booked for 6am, the spa hours, a dinner reservation. Every request lands as a note on a paper slip or a WhatsApp thread nobody can search later.
A guest who doesn't speak the receptionist's language gives up and waits until morning. Another calls twice because no one confirmed the first request ever went through.
Now the same guest opens an app, taps extra towels, picks their language, and watches the status move from received to on the way. The request is logged, routed to housekeeping, and timestamped.
The front desk is free for the arrival walking through the door.
According to Oracle Hospitality's consumer research, 73% of travelers want to use their mobile device to manage their entire hotel experience: check-in, check-out, ordering food, and service requests. For hotels still routing those interactions through the front desk, the gap between what guests expect and what they get is where satisfaction scores fall. When guests self-serve routine requests, front desk call volume can drop by around half.
At City Break Apartments, a guest self-service platform we built now handles 72+ weekly self check-ins, and front desk call volume dropped significantly after launch. A redesigned direct booking and self-service flow reached 580+ active users within 2 months and tripled direct bookings; a separate hotel guest app we shipped holds a 4.8 App Store rating. RaftLabs has spent 9 years and shipped 100+ products, including hospitality platforms for the US, UK, and Ireland, for clients including Vodafone, T-Mobile, Aldi, Nike, Cisco, and Lockheed Martin. The team that scopes your concierge app is the team that ships it, and the price is locked in writing before any development starts.
A concierge app pays off when routine requests already flood the front desk.
Everything on the left should already be true for your property. Even one thing on the right, and a lighter fix is the smarter first step.
A fit
01
A hotel, resort, or serviced apartment where the front desk fields the same routine requests all day, on paper or WhatsApp.
02
You run a PMS like Mews, Opera, Apaleo, or Cloudbeds and want guest profiles and room data to flow into the app automatically.
03
International guests hit language barriers today that your staff work around by hand.
Not a fit
A single small property where the front desk handles request volume comfortably by phone.
You want an off-the-shelf app with no PMS integration and no custom routing.
You need in-room tablet hardware procured and mounted, not the software that runs on it.
Two-way chat between guests and staff. Guests ask questions, make special requests, and get answers without calling the front desk. Staff reply from the web-based operations dashboard.
03
Restaurant and spa booking
Guests browse availability and book restaurant slots, spa appointments, and activity sessions directly in the app. Bookings sync to your reservation system or appear in the staff dashboard for confirmation.
04
Push notifications
Request status updates sent automatically to guests: confirmed, in progress, complete. Proactive alerts for check-in readiness, welcome messages, and checkout reminders.
05
Multi-language support
Guest interface available in any language. Request categories, menu items, and system messages managed from the admin panel. Right-to-left languages supported.
Web-based staff interface for managing the request queue, assigning tasks, updating status, and reviewing the full request log with timestamps and resolution times.
08
In-room tablet and personal device support
Kiosk mode for in-room tablets tied to the room. Personal device access via booking reference or SMS link. Both modes access the same request catalog and messaging.
Why hotels choose a custom concierge app
01
No more lost requests
Every request is logged with a timestamp, a department assignment, and a resolution status. Managers see the full queue at a glance and identify bottlenecks without chasing down WhatsApp threads.
02
Front desk freed for high-value work
Routine calls, room service orders, and towel requests are handled by the app, so staff spend less time on repeat inquiries and more time on arrivals, VIP guests, and situations that actually need a human.
03
International guests served without friction
Guests submit requests in their own language and staff see them in the operations language, so no bilingual staff is required for every interaction. Fewer misunderstandings, fewer follow-up calls.
04
Audit trail for operations
Every request carries a staff member, a timestamp, and a resolution time. Managers use the data to identify which request types take longest, which shifts have backlog, and where to focus training.
05
Guests feel more in control
Guests dislike waiting on hold and repeating requests to different staff members. An app that shows their request status in real time reduces anxiety and increases satisfaction scores.
06
Upsell and ancillary revenue
Restaurant bookings, spa slots, and add-on services surfaced in the same interface guests use to request towels. Upsell without a hard sell.
Guest data handling that meets GDPR requirements is scoped in week 1, not retrofitted before launch, drawing on hospitality platforms we have shipped for European markets including Ireland and the UK, without added scope creep.
What is your front desk spending its day on?
Walk us through the requests your team fields most. We'll show you how a concierge app would handle them and what it takes to build.
How it works
From scope to live concierge app
Week 1
01
Discovery and workflow mapping
We map your guest journey, the service categories your guests request most, and how your operations team currently handles requests. We audit your PMS integration requirements and confirm which languages you need. You leave week 1 with a written scope document and a fixed-price quote.
Weeks 2-3
02
Design and admin architecture
Guest-facing app screens and the staff operations dashboard designed together so routing logic and notification flows are confirmed before any production code is written. Wireframes and mockups reviewed with your team before build starts.
Weeks 4-12
03
Build, integrate, and test
Working app at a staging URL from sprint one. PMS integration runs in parallel with feature development. Multi-language content loaded and reviewed before QA. Bi-weekly demos. QA runs alongside every sprint, not as a phase at the end.
Weeks 12+
04
Launch and post-launch support
Production deployment with monitoring active on day one. Staff training and guest onboarding materials included. 8 weeks of post-launch support in every project for request routing issues, edge cases, and performance tuning.
Scope your concierge app.
A 30-minute call to walk through your property's requests and PMS. A costed scope follows in about two business days. Fixed price, locked in writing before any development starts.
A digital concierge app lets hotel and serviced apartment guests request services, ask questions, book spa or restaurant slots, and communicate with staff from a mobile app or in-room tablet, without calling the front desk. The app routes each request to the right department, tracks its status in real time, and maintains a full audit log. For operations teams, it replaces paper slips and WhatsApp threads with a structured request queue. For guests, it removes the friction of waiting on hold or repeating requests. A good concierge app covers room service orders, housekeeping requests, maintenance reports, wake-up calls, taxi and transport bookings, restaurant reservations, local recommendations, and two-way messaging with staff. Multi-language support handles international guests without requiring bilingual staff for every interaction.
We integrate concierge apps with the PMS platforms most commonly used in hotels and serviced apartments: Mews, Opera, Apaleo, and Cloudbeds. PMS integration means the app reads guest profile data, room assignments, and check-in status automatically, so staff see each request alongside the guest's profile without manual data entry. Departing guests are automatically deactivated, and arriving guests receive access before check-in for a smoother arrival. If your PMS is not on that list, we audit its API during discovery. We have integrated with more than a dozen hospitality systems and can assess feasibility before any development starts. The integration is tested against your PMS staging environment before go-live, so no surprises appear on day one with real guests.
Each service request submitted through the app appears on an operations dashboard assigned to the relevant department. A housekeeping request goes to the housekeeping queue. A maintenance report goes to maintenance. A taxi booking goes to the front desk or a transport coordinator, depending on how you route it. Staff acknowledge requests, update status to in progress, and mark them complete. The guest sees status changes in real time in the app. Every request carries a timestamp, staff member, and resolution time, giving managers a full audit log and the data to identify bottlenecks. Push notifications alert guests when their request is updated. The staff-facing dashboard is web-based and works on any device, no separate app required for your team.
Yes. Multi-language support is a core feature, not an add-on. The guest interface can display in any language you need. Request categories, menu items, and system messages are translated and maintained in the admin panel without requiring a developer. For markets with Chinese, Arabic, or right-to-left languages, we test layout and rendering specifically during QA. The operations-side dashboard stays in your preferred language regardless of what the guest sees. We scope which languages you need in discovery and include them in the fixed-price quote. Adding a new language post-launch is straightforward: strings are stored in a translation file and updated through the admin panel, not a development change request.
Yes. We build the guest-facing app as a responsive web application or native app, depending on your device strategy. On in-room tablets, it runs as a kiosk-mode web app tied to the room, with no login required for the guest. On personal devices, guests log in with a booking reference or receive a unique link via SMS or email at check-in. Both modes access the same request catalog and messaging interface. Tablet hardware procurement and mounting is outside our scope, but we work with whatever device specification you have in place and can advise on models that work well for hotel kiosk use.
A core concierge app covering service requests, in-app messaging, push notifications, and a staff operations dashboard typically takes 8 to 12 weeks for the first working version, including PMS integration. Multi-language support and in-room tablet configuration are included in that timeline if scoped from the start. More complex builds with restaurant booking engines, spa scheduling, or multi-property rollout run 12 to 16 weeks. Cost depends on scope and the number of integrations. We lock the price in writing before any development starts. You receive a fixed-price document after the first week of discovery, with no surprises on the final invoice.
Work with us
Tell us what you need. We'll tell you what it would take.
We scope Concierge App Development for Hotels and Serviced Apartments in 30 minutes. You walk away with a clear cost, timeline, and approach. No commitment required.
Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
