Techtalks: Traveltech

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.

Thanks for the answer

Thanks Alex Soft team for providing a comprehensive response.

Furthermore, all three Flight APIs you've highlighted appear to hold great potential as alternatives to the Google Flight API for both developers and travel businesses. I recently came across this in-depth article on Google Flight API that not only elucidates the entire journey from the inception to the discontinuation of the Google Flight API but also presents an alternative solution. I believe this alternative could prove highly valuable to businesses seeking reliable flight-related data.

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.

You should use Hotel Price Comparison API for Hotel and FLight API for Flights. They both compare prices from several vendors to provide Hotel and flight prices respectively from multiple vendors.

Hello Dipali,

Thank you for your question. If we’re on the same page, you’re a property owner whose properties are listed on the Booking.com platform. So you’d like to sync the data regarding your bookings there with other services like a cleaning company.

For this purpose, Booking offers its partners a property management interface to retrieve and modify data for their properties - Connectivity APIs.

But if you leverage multiple channels, you may want to use the help of a channel manager. It will connect you with every platform you expose your properties on. If that’s your case, read our article that will help you choose a channel manager product for your hospitality business.

Please let us know if we addressed your point.

Travelport GDS (Global Distribution System) is a leading platform that provides travel content, technology, and services for the travel industry. Here are some of the benefits of using Travelport GDS:

1. Access to a vast inventory of travel content: Travelport GDS provides access to a vast inventory of travel content, including airline, hotel, car rental, and other travel services. This makes it easy for travel agents to search and book the best travel options for their clients.

2. Improved efficiency and productivity: With Travelport GDS, travel agents can automate their workflow and reduce manual processes, which improves their efficiency and productivity. This means they can spend more time providing personalized service to their clients.

3. Customizable solutions: Travelport GDS offers customizable solutions to meet the unique needs of travel agents and their clients. This includes customized booking tools, travel policies, and reporting.

4. Enhanced customer service: Travelport GDS allows travel agents to offer their clients personalized service, including travel recommendations, itinerary changes, and travel alerts. This improves customer satisfaction and loyalty.

5. Real-time availability and pricing: Travelport GDS provides real-time availability and pricing information, which helps travel agents make informed booking decisions and provide accurate quotes to their clients.

6. Global reach: Travelport GDS has a global reach, which means travel agents can access travel content and services from all over the world. This makes it easy for them to book travel for clients who are traveling internationally.

Overall, Travelport GDS offers a range of benefits to travel agents and their clients, including access to a vast inventory of travel content, improved efficiency and productivity, customizable solutions, enhanced customer service, real-time availability and pricing, and global reach.

White label and an API are two different solutions which serve a similar purpose - communication between the two platforms.

White label is a ready-made unbranded template that you can deploy on your website and it will link you to the provider of certain services. So now your customers won’t need to leave your site as they can access what they need from your page. Additionally, you can tailor a white label to match your brand. This way your customers won’t tell that it’s not a part of your website but a third-party template.

An example of a travel white labeled product is a template solution by Expedia that allows for adding their accommodation bookings to your website. You can read more about it in our article about Expedia Partner Solutions.

Working in the back end, an API pulls out the requested data from external servers and displays it on your side in your way. This means that you design your own interface and use the data only. When deciding on a travel API, you can check our article with the major APIs on the travel market.

Of two options, API involves a more sophisticated integration but at the same time, it’s more adjustable. Prior to getting at it, answer yourself whether you do need an API for this specific product. Oftentimes it turns out that a white label solution will do for you. And with minimal tech resources (the company you take the white label from, does the work for you) you can quickly include a travel solution in your platform.

Hi there, 

Have you tried contacting Amadeus support with this challenge? Perhaps, they will be able to help. You may also connect with our experts via solutions@altexsoft.com or using the chat in the bottom right corner. It may take several hours to solve the issue. 

Klook is a travel activities (tours and attractions) platform. It allows travelers to book tours, diving activities, park visits, even train tickets, and more. It mostly targets travel in Asia.

From the inside, it works just as most big online travel agencies do. From the end-customer side, it has a mobile app and their website to book activities. And it connects with activity suppliers either via a SaaS interface (extranet) or an API. To get the idea, you can read how OTA back office works.

Expedia is the second largest player in the online travel agencies market with about 32 percent market share, according to 2018 data. It’s second to Booking.com, which has 41 percent of the market. Actually, we’ve compared these companies in our infographic. Keep in mind that it uses 2017 data.

Hello Smail,

At the current moment, nearly all the largest low-cost airlines signed distribution agreements with GDS’s. You may contact their sales managers to get an API connection to some of the low-cost carriers.

As a matter of fact, the first GDS to consolidate only low-cost carriers was Navitaire, currently owned by Amadeus GDS.

Or, you can contact dedicated platforms, that consolidate low-cost only airlines. These are Pyton Flight Portal that offers over 100 low-cost carries via an XML API, and tfFlight platform owned by travel content aggregator Travelfusion.

You can learn more about the available low-cost API’s in our dedicated article.

We hope it answers your question!