Techtalks: Traveltech

Hello Everyone ,

The Hotel Search Api I would recommend are -

1. Amadeus
2. Sabre
3. HotelBeds
4. Bedsonline
5. Travellanda
6. Travel Boutique Online

These are some of the hotel Search API I would suggest. If anybody wants to know more about HotelApi go through this link  .

Hello Massimo,

Thank you for your interest.

First, let’s unravel the payment processing flow.

You described the business model where a travel agency is accepting direct payments from customers and functions as a merchant of record. Adding a commission to the net-price, an OTA charges the client. Usually, an agency integrates a payment gateway to process payments.

In more detail, payment processing works like this:

When the money is on the agency’s account, it pays the supplier its share. In the case of flights, OTAs must be IATA-accredited to pay airlines directly. Small OTAs aren’t usually certified, so they leverage a consolidator as a payment mediator between them and an airline.

But if an OTA doesn’t function as a merchant, usually, it redirects to a supplier (in case of a direct distribution) or a larger OTA like Expedia or Booking.com for a transaction. According to this business model, OTAs get paid their percentage of the total price at the end of the month. Payment processing isn’t on their shoulders so they don’t owe commissions to payment gateways.

Expedia, for instance, provides EPS Checkout - a white-label solution that collects credit card data and then transmits it to EPS servers where the data is validated and stored.

Distributing hotels, some agencies list the rooms and allow customers only to book but pay already at the property. So that the hotel will pay back the OTA the contracted commission after the check-out.

Your second inquiry was about cost-efficient payment processors.

Setting up a payment gateway is lucrative in case your OTA has a large payment volume:
The more transactions a gateway processes, the less percent it charges per card. Hence, an OTA with about 5000 transactions per month will pay a higher commission per transaction than an OTA with 50000 transactions.

There’s a great number of payment gateways but they offer a similar set of services for a fairly similar price. So, we wouldn’t say that looking for a cheaper payment gateway can save you a lot of money. What really can be a game-changer is negotiating competitive rates and deals with end-product suppliers. Besides leveraging GDS generic deals, it’s necessary to extend your own pool of providers ready to work with you on exclusive conditions. You can read more marketing tips for travel agencies in our article.

All in all, defining a payment processing strategy is a complex task. So, you may want to get in touch with our sales team for further discussion.

Starting an OTA (Online Travel Agency) can be a complex process, but it is definitely achievable with careful planning and execution. Here are some steps that you can take to get started:

Research and Define your Niche: Before starting an OTA, you should define your niche and identify the type of travelers you want to target. Some examples of niches include adventure travel, luxury travel, budget travel, etc.

Identify your Suppliers: After defining your niche, you need to identify your suppliers. These include airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and other travel-related services. You will need to negotiate contracts with them to get access to their inventory.

Build a Website: You will need to build a website for your OTA that is user-friendly and easy to navigate. You can hire a web development company to create a custom website or use a pre-built platform such as WordPress or Shopify.

Good evening all
Please how do i create a flight booking, after getting data from flight offers, will i use the array i got from flight offers into "flight-orders"?
I have done all the process of flight search and my challenges now is the process of booking, please help

Hi there,
 
Thank you for this insightful question.
 
Every flight search API has access to airline schedules that include connecting airports. But not always this API is capable of processing stopover requests.
 
Pulling flight data from Global Distribution Systems, you can set a stopover airport as an additional search parameter. So the API will return you only the flights with the leg in the selected airport.
 
Also, you can do it from your side: Once the itineraries are retrieved via the API, сreate a business rule for this data that will execute filtering by the stopover airport.

Hi there,
 
Thank you for the question. 
 
Airlines used to pay commissions to travel agencies for reselling their tickets but they rarely do it today. Commission cuts started in the 2000s and these days they’ve been brought down almost to zero. Though, airlines still give agencies a productivity-linked incentive of two percent on average. 
 
If not commissions than what?
 
These days, OTAs rather make money by topping the flight price with markups. OTA’s commission engine adjusts markup sizes depending on a number of factors like current demand, competition, season, etc. 
 
Agencies have other income streams like service fees, consultation or planning fees, insurance costs. In addition, OTAs provide other services like hotels or car rentals where the commission situation is more favorable.
 
Besides that, OTAs have agreements with some airlines that allow them to negotiate more favorable terms for selling their tickets. Usually, it means aligning with a host agency or consortium.

Hi Rob,

Yes, generally it’s better to become a travel agent, more expensive, but if you get returns they will be way higher than those of an affiliate. As an agent you’ll must be able to do all customer service (e.g. cancellation management), which isn’t the case for an affiliate. 
 
You can start off with contacting wholesalers (or bed banks) if you plan on working with hotels. Check Hotelbeds, WebBeds, and there are a whole lot of other niche wholesalers. They provide access to content, availability, pricing, and booking capability. And it’s easier for newcomers to work with hotels rather than flights as usually you get higher commissions and can test your hypothesis and marketing strategy.  
 
Then you can try flights using either the affiliate model or by working with flight consolidators. In fact, there are very few ways you can start selling flights and ticketing them without the IATA agent certification.

There are several APIs available that provide pricing information for major cruise lines offering Cruise Price API like Cruise Direct API, Expedia Cruise Ship Centers API which offers real-time data on cruise pricing and availability from multiple cruise lines, including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line, among others. The API provides access to up-to-date pricing information, making it easy to compare prices from different cruise lines and find the best deals. Additionally, the Cruise Booking Engine offers a simple and easy-to-use interface, allowing you to quickly retrieve pricing information for your desired cruise itinerary.

Hi there,
 
Unfortunately, as of January 23rd, SAP Concur terminated this travel metasearch turning down its co-founders’ buyback offer. While there might be some efforts taken to revive the brand, in the meantime, we suggest looking at some other alternatives. 
 
The first substitutes that come to mind are Skyscanner and Kayak. Both offer flights, hotels, and car rental APIs while Kayak also distributes trains and package tours data. 
 
But getting access to these APIs might be hard for small businesses. Kayak doesn’t permit integration unless your platform has more than 100,000 monthly visitors. In case of no response, we advise considering APIs of Global Distribution Systems like Amadeus. Their self-service air and hotel APIs are free for test environments, while fees apply when you exceed the number of free calls.

You may find more providers to consider in our extensive article on travel APIs.

As per my outlook The best flight API are :-

1. Amadeus
2.  Flightapi
3. Sabre
4. Mystifly
5. TravelPort
6. Travelfusion

These are the api that I would suggest . Hope this information will help you . To know more about flight api go through this following link .

Well, you can use Hotel Price Comparison API for that purpose. It compares more than 200 Hotel OTAs like Booking.xom, Exoedia, Agoda, Priceline, Orbitz, TripAdvisor, ZenHotels, Hotels.com, MMT, HRS, etc. It provides JSON response with all the hotels in a city with top 6 cheapest vendors. You can either search for a city or a particular Hotel. This API will help you get what you are looking for.

Booking.com-owned OTA, Priceline has Partner Network’s API set for retrieving dynamic rates and availability as well as booking hotels, cars for rent, flights, and bundle packaging. You don’t have to integrate everything but can opt for a certain product. Besides the HTTPS-based API, Priceline partners can also get an adaptable private label solution. Note that they only consider partners who produce no less than five bookings per day. You’ll also have to tell about your company, its target customers, and make predictions as to your bookings growth. So if you meet the entry requirements and would like to make use of the Priceline API, fill out their contact form.

Hi there,
 
That’s actually the question small partners of QPX Express asked themselves in 2018 when the API was ceased. Modeling on Google Flights API, what we seek in substitutes are:
 
1. search for multiple airlines, including low-cost carriers
2. diverse filtering options
3. easy-to-use interface
 
Booking processing isn’t first on our list, as it’s not what a metasearch engine like Google Flights is aimed at. Now, to the candidates.
 
Skyscanner. Another metasearch engine, Skyscanner offers a suite of subscription-free flight search APIs. It pays commissions according to your conversion and traffic quality. The APIs aggregate over 250 airlines and compare them using powerful search algorithms to retrieve the cheapest prices, routes, and dates. This also includes Inspirational search features. Use Flights Browse Prices API for cached content and Flights Live Prices API for real-time queries. Besides flights, Skyscanner also provides APIs to connect car hire and hotel fare data. You can request the API access here. 
 
Travelfusion. Over 150 low-cost carriers are in your pocket if you connect to the Travelfusion Direct Connect XML API. This API also supports fully automated booking processes. So you can either book from your side or redirect to the supplier's website. If you aim at packaged tours, consider Travelfusion Fast API. Prior to using the XML APIs, you’ll have to register and sign the license agreement with set fees.
 
Kiwi.com. The coverage of Kiwi’s API set is about the same size as the Travelfusion’s. It includes both legacy and low-cost carriers. The booking is processed on the OTA’s side. Besides the general flight API capabilities, there’s an API that offers travel tips to customers helping them save time and money. To use the Kiwi API, register for their partner portal Tequila. You’ll get a 3 percent commission on every processed booking.
 
Kayak. If your traffic exceeds 100,000 visitors a month, you’re able to integrate Kayak searches and results into your platform. You can do so by enrolling in their affiliate program. You select the data you need among flights, cars, hotels, trains, packages. 
For more options, check out our article on flight booking API providers.

Integrating a flight API into your flight website involves a series of steps. First, select a suitable flight API provider and sign up to obtain API credentials. Familiarize yourself with the API documentation to understand the available endpoints, request/response formats, and authentication methods. Plan your integration based on the desired features, such as flight search and booking. Set up server-side integration using a programming language and any necessary SDKs. Implement flight search functionality by making API requests and displaying the results on your website. If desired, enable flight booking by integrating the provider's booking API. Implement proper error handling for API requests and consider edge cases. Thoroughly test your integration before deploying it to your live website. Stay updated with the API provider's documentation for any changes or updates. Remember to comply with the provider's terms of use and usage limitations.

Thank you for your question.
 
We haven’t found any proof that the GDS has stopped supporting e-Power. Moreover, we communicated with Amadeus representative who also confirmed that they do sell e-Power as usual. 
 
Have a look at a non-customized standardized e-Power instance on staging at https://staging.epower.amadeus.com/noramstarterbase/. Amadeus warns that it might work slowly which doesn’t reflect the real response time in production.
 
If you still have any questions regarding e-Power left, we advise addressing them directly to Amadeus. 
 
For those who don’t know, here are a few words about the product. 
 
e-Power is an online booking engine fully integrated both with the Amadeus system and a travel agency website. e-Power enables OTA customers to book flights, cars, and accommodations. OTAs can customize e-Power design, including banners and logos. The e-Power platform also includes: 
 
1. marketing tools to manage customer relations and conversion rate,
2. technical tools to expose content on metasearch engines,
3. set of service fees and mark-up rules to resell services with benefit,
4. mobile-friendly interface,
5. available ancillary services to upsell.

Hello Mayur,
 
Thank you for your interest. First, we’d like to specify that further by a car hire aggregator we’ll mean a metasearch that aggregates car rental offers from multiple suppliers. Please let us know if you had another idea in mind so that we can advise you accordingly. 
 
So, building the infrastructure of a car rentals aggregator, you’ll have to take care of: 
 
Inventory connection via APIs. Global distribution systems can give you access to a large car rental inventory. But car rental companies are increasingly switching to direct connect solutions rather than traditional distribution channels. Deciding on suppliers to connect to, our car rental APIs catalog should be of use to you. 
 
Crawlers for web scraping. Sometimes suppliers don’t allow for direct connection, so aggregators resort to web scraping. They launch a program that mimics human activity to extract data from the supplier’s website.
 
Data mapping. Each provider you distribute has its own way of presenting data. So you’ll need to group and process data first and then display it comprehensively on your side while keeping it up-to-date.  
 
Meta ranking. You need to compare car rental prices using business rules aka algorithms.
 
Database. Integrates with all the suppliers, database stores all the fetched data, that later can be used for tracking, reporting, and statistics. Such modules as a background sync process for static data and data cache control will help you manage the up-to-dateness of your DB. 
 
Search engine. The core of any aggregator system, search engine handles queries and searches through the databases. From the backed, it crunches data. From the front end, it provides the customer with the search results - cars for rent, in our case. 
 
If you plan to distribute car rental offers worldwide, you’ll need language and currency functions. Since aggregators don’t facilitate booking, you don’t have to worry about accounting and payment processing modules.
 
AltexSoft has expertise in building booking platforms. So, you can consult our team to get more specific recommendations. 

Hello Roman,

Thank you for your feedback.
We assume you’re considering which database to integrate with: a metasearch or a GDS.
Let us know if we misunderstood your request.

Now to the point. The flow you describe is indeed common for metasearch engines aka aggregators like Skyscanner, Google Flights, or Kayak: they answer queries using formatted and ranked results from third-party search engines or directly from airline and OTA partners. Once travelers proceed with booking, a metasearch redirects them to the actual owner of the deal. And that’s how they make money - for every click on their link.

A metasearch engine’s business model is to provide the richest flight options that exactly match the traveler’s needs. They are able to reach more precise fare returns for a lower cost than GDS. They achieve that by aggregating data from millions of flights both past and present and comparing prices using strong search algorithms.

Some metasearch engines tap into New Distribution Capability to enable direct bookings through their websites. An example is Skyscanner’s direct booking platform. They can connect directly to the airline’s Central Reservation System via an NDC API to aggregate flight data.

As per your question, a metasearch engine pulls information from the APIs by flight data providers. Airlines and OTAs are usually the ones to initiate a connection with metasearch, as they want to broaden their customer base. Besides direct partners, aggregators integrate with:

• GDSs,
• Innovata or OAG for flight schedules, and
• ATPCO for fare classes.

Some airlines don’t provide direct access, though. Low-costers are the majority of them, as they strive for direct bookings. In this case, aggregators have the practice of mimicking human activity on airline websites aimed at extracting fare info. It’s called web scraping and it’s semi-legal so aggregators had better agree on that with an airline first.

For a full picture of airline distribution, check our infographic.

Speaking of the metasearch APIs capabilities, they don’t enable booking on your website. For this purpose, you’ll have to redirect users to either the aggregator itself or directly to the deal owner.

Currently, Moovit doesn’t provide a public API for their services. Instead, they suggest using their widget, links, and buttons. So, you should contact them directly to access the API.

And there’s another thing you can try. Since November, 2018, Movit is a partner of Microsoft’s Azure and their transit data is available through Azure Maps service. It supplies developers with a variety of APIs and a rich customization toolset. To start using Azure Maps, you must create an account, sign into the Azure portal, choose subscription, pricing options to start working with APIs.  You may check their documentation first.

Still, working with Azure maybe more expensive than getting access to the API directly.

Well, if we’re comparing a reservation system to an Excel spreadsheet or even a paper notebook, it has all the pros, and the costs pay off in the long run. Reservation will basically automate main booking operations like:

• Showing room status (booked/vacant)
• Collecting payments made online
• Managing inventory
• Sending confirmation emails, etc.

Besides, it’s not always fair to talk about reservation software as a separate unit - often, hotels would purchase this functionality within a property management system, so the whole hotel can be managed via a single platform.

The pros would be are those, usually addressed to software - sometimes, you will need the help of support, but they won’t be available, or the price may appear too high (though, often, it depends on the hotel size), or your staff would have to learn a new workflow, which always takes time. Also, in case of a power outage or if your Internet is slow, you may have problems checking in clients, but that’s manageable if you choose a provider who has offline access or simply use a backup solution.