Industry Served: Tourism & Travel
Irish Day Tours, Ireland's
Leading Day Tour Operator
A Mobile App for Booking, Managing and Running Day Tours Across Ireland,
Built for Guests, Guides and Operations Teams.
Bringing Ireland's Top Day Tour Operator Into the Mobile Era
Discuss your projectIrish Day Tours was founded in 2006 as Extreme Ireland, starting with hiking tours before pivoting to daily coach tours from Dublin. Over nearly two decades the company grew to become Ireland's leading day tour operator, part of the EI Travel Group, running a fleet of luxury coaches, operating tourist offices on College Green and O'Connell Street, and carrying tens of thousands of passengers each year to destinations including the Cliffs of Moher, Giant's Causeway, Blarney Castle, Glendalough and the Game of Thrones Studio.
The company's operation spans ten daily tour routes from Dublin, private tours, airport transfers, Dublin city experiences and a multilingual audience of international visitors arriving in EN, ES, DE, FR and IT. Managing bookings, guide assignments, passenger communication and real-time logistics across that scale is a significant operational undertaking, one that the existing tools were no longer adequate to support.
We were brought in to build the Irish Day Tours mobile app: a platform that puts tour discovery, booking and ticketing in guests' hands while giving the operations team real-time visibility across every active tour.
Project Challenges & Needs
Multi-language International Guests
Guests arrive from across Europe and beyond, speaking English, Spanish, German, French and Italian. The app needed to serve all five language audiences without friction from the moment they first open it.
Booking Across a Wide Tour Portfolio
Over ten daily routes depart from Dublin, each with different pickup times, durations, pricing tiers and included stops. The booking flow had to make the right tour easy to find & purchase, without overwhelming guests with choice.
Real-time Operations Visibility
With multiple coaches running simultaneously and tours operating 364 days of the year, the operations team needed live status on passenger numbers, check-ins and guide assignments without relying on phone calls or manual updates.
Seamless Check-in at Departure Points
Dublin departures gather large groups under time pressure. Paper tickets and manual passenger lists slow boarding and create errors. Guides needed a fast, reliable way to verify bookings and check passengers onto coaches.
Guest Communication Throughout the Day
Guests needed timely information about their tour: pickup confirmation, itinerary updates, weather-related changes and return times. Without a direct communication channel, this relied entirely on the guide and left guests uncertain when anything changed.
Upsell and Last-minute Availability
Tours often run with empty seats that could be filled at short notice. The app needed to surface same-day availability and offer add-ons, such as entry tickets or Dublin city experiences, to guests already in the booking flow.
Our Solution
We built a cross-platform mobile app for iOS and Android, delivering:
The app was built to operate at the pace of a tour company running 364 days a year, fast check ins, reliable notifications, and real-time operational data for a team managing multiple coaches simultaneously across routes that span the length of the island
Interfaces We Developed
Guest-facing Mobile App (iOS & Android)
Used by tour guests from discovery through to the end of their day:
- Language selection and full multilingual interface across five languages
- Date-based availability calendar and seat selection
- Digital tickets with QR codes for check-in at departure
- In-app tour guide with stop information and local context throughout the day
- Same-day tour availability and add-on experiences
- Tour catalogue with itinerary details, photos, departure times, durations and pricing
- Secure in-app payment and booking confirmation
- Push notifications for pickup reminders, itinerary updates and return times
- Gift card redemption and promotional code entry at checkout
- Post-tour review prompt to TripAdvisor or Google
Guide-facing App Interface
Used by drivers and guides at departure and throughout each tour:
- Passenger manifest for each assigned tour, with guest names, booking reference and seat count
- QR code scanner for fast check-in at departure, marking passengers as boarded
- Real-time count of checked-in vs. outstanding passengers before departure
- Tour status updates pushed to the operations team from on the road
- Emergency contact and support information accessible throughout the tour
Operations Dashboard
The live management layer for the Irish Day Tours operations team:
- Live overview of all active tours with departure status, passenger counts and check-in progress
- Guide and driver assignment management per tour and date
- Booking volume and revenue reporting by tour route and date range
- Promotional code and gift card management
- Push notification tools for broadcast messages to guests on active tours
- Customer contact records and booking history for support queries
Key Features & Capabilities
Full Multilingual Support
The app operates natively in English, Spanish, German, French and Italian. Guests experience the full booking and tour journey in their own language without switching to the website.
QR Code Check-in
Each booking generates a digital QR ticket. Guides scan tickets at departure using the guide interface, replacing paper manifests and dramatically reducing boarding time for full coaches.
Real-time Operations Dashboard
The operations team sees live check-in status, passenger counts and tour progress across every active route simultaneously, without relying on radio calls or manual reports from guides in the field.
Tour Discovery and Booking
Guests browse the full tour catalogue, check availability, review itineraries and complete a secure booking entirely within the app, without needing to visit the website or a physical office.
Push Notifications
Guests receive pickup reminders, itinerary updates and return time notifications throughout the tour day. The operations team can broadcast messages to all guests on a specific active tour when plans change.
Same-day & Last-minute Availability
Unsold seats on tours departing the same day are surfaced prominently in the app, giving guests in Dublin a clear view of what is available and making it easy for the company to fill remaining capacity.
In-tour Guide Content
Guests access stop-by-stop information about each location on their tour route within the app, giving them context before they arrive and a reference while on site.
Gift Cards & Promotional Codes
The checkout flow supports gift card redemption and promotional code entry, connecting the app to the company's existing gift card programme and marketing campaigns without any additional friction at the point of purchase.
Outcomes And Impact
Faster Boarding, Every Day
Operations
QR check-in replaced paper manifests across all tours. Guides board full coaches more quickly, departure delays are reduced, and the operations team has a live view of check-in progress without contacting the guide.
Bookings Without Borders
Revenue
Multilingual booking in five languages brought the purchase journey into guests' own language for the first time on mobile, removing a friction point for non-English speakers that had previously required staff at the tourist offices to complete the sale.
Operations Team Off the Phone
Efficiency
Live tour status visible in the dashboard removed the need for check-in calls between the operations team and guides in the field, freeing up staff time on high-volume departure mornings when multiple tours run simultaneously.
Technologies Used to Develop the Solution
Mobile
React Native
Cross-platform iOS and Android app from a single codebase, with native quality UI for both platforms.
Backend
Node.js
API layer managing bookings, availability, user accounts, guide assignments and tour data.
Database
PostgreSQL
Booking records, passenger manifests, tour schedules and operational data.
Payments
Stripe
Secure in-app payment processing with support for gift card redemption and promotional codes.
Notifications
Firebase Cloud Messaging
Push notifications for booking confirmations, pickup reminders and live tour updates.
QR Ticketing
QR Code Generation & Scanning
Digital ticket generation on booking confirmation and in-app QR scanning for guide-side check-in.
Localisation
i18n (5 Languages)
Full app localisation in English, Spanish, German, French and Italian, matching the existing website language offering.
Storage & Hosting
Cloud Infrastructure with CDN
Tour imagery and content served reliably across regions for a global guest audience.
Security
Encryption & Secure Auth
Data encrypted at rest and in transit, with secure authentication for guest, guide and operations accounts.
Get in touch
Share a few details about what you're building, and we'll take it from there.
