Travel and Booking APIs - Which Could You Make Use Of?

 

 

An Overview of Travel and Booking APIs for Online Travel and Tourism Service Providers

 

Travel booking APIs are vital tools that enable travel agencies, businesses, DMCs, distribution platforms, and corporate intranets to provide excellent value and service to their customers. Customers can book everything online, including flights, hotels, transfers, excursions, and vacation packages.

By incorporating the API into your travel portal, a travel agent or travel management business can quickly optimize the business and provide customers with travel packages such as hotels, flights, transfers, and tour packages.

Trawex has a team of brilliantly skilled professionals who have incredible insights and knowledge to build and create effective Travel API Integration solutions for your business, whether it is a Hotel Booking API, Travel API, Flight API, Sightseeing API, Cruise API, Activities API, and so on.

 

The main types of travel APIs and how do they work?

 

A travel API is a collection of web services that allow you to access travel deals from various travel consolidators. Travel APIs, such as flight APIs, car APIs, and hotel APIs, allow travel agencies, tour operators, and travel companies to access their rich content and travel deals.

Travel agents can integrate travel inventory from third-party GDSs, travel wholesalers, aggregators, consolidators, and others into their website's booking engine or travel portal. 

Travel agents can use the Travel API to gain access to various travel options and improve the functionality of their website.

 

Integration of APIs in the travel business allows travel agencies to avail of these benefits: 

 

• A single booking platform for hotels, flights, and cars.

• Real-time booking system.

• A booking engine that is secure, reliable, and robust.

• Several API Options.

• Customize the interface to reflect your company’s highlights.

• It is simple to incorporate travel search.

 

So, here are the most common APIs used to integrate travel industry features and data.

 

• Flight search and booking by GDSs and OTAs

• NDC integration for merchandising and rich content

• Flight data, schedules, and fares

• Direct hotel booking with PMSs and channel managers

• Hotel booking with aggregators: GDSs, connectivity providers, and switches

• Wholesale hotel booking with bed banks

• Partner hotel booking with OTAs

• Hotel mapping

• Car rental booking

• Business travel management and expense tracking

• Reviews and ratings

• Tours, attractions, and experiences

• Public transportation

 

1. Flight search and booking APIs by GDSs and OTAs

 

Amadeus APIs

 

Amadeus APIs refer to GDS (global distribution system) functionality. The APIs are available as self-service or enterprise sets:

 

Self-Service APIs

 

Self-service APIs have replaced an old travel booking API — Innovation Sandbox — and are designed for both prototyping and commercial use. These APIs make it easier to search for flights and hotels, such as the cheapest dates, lowest fares, and most booked destinations.

 

Enterprise APIs

 

This is the main set, which includes nine different distribution types:

 

• Railroads

• Flights

• Hotels

• Car rentals

• Transfers

• Cruises

• Travel insurance booking

• Customer profiles

• Utilities

 

Each type contains several APIs. Some provide information by locating the lowest fares or flexible-schedule fares. Others are tailored to ticket booking, providing ample flexibility in configuring the set of services for the client's product. Enterprise APIs are available in a range of REST/JSON and SOAP/XML formats. To inquire about pricing and API access, you must contact Amadeus directly.

 

Sabre flight APIs

 

Sabre GDS API Integration has transformed the travel industry. Sabre Flight APIs include seat and flight schedule availability, low-cost flights, price changes, and online ticketing. From shopping to booking flights, the Sabre Airline API has it all.

• Sell more seats consistently

• Make decisions with accurate data

• Allow your business to run smoothly

• Get real-time information on seat availability and price changes.

 
Travelport flight APIs

 

Travelport API is one of the most sophisticated Global Distribution Systems for the travel domain. Travel agencies and companies can integrate their businesses with enriched and more comprehensive travel content for booking flights with real-time flight data and best offers using Travelport Airlines GDS.

• Air shopping and booking

• Fares and Ancillaries

• Air content and merchandising

• Seat maps

 

Google Flights API

 

Google Flights is a flight search and booking engine that assists in the acquisition of airline tickets from third-party suppliers. Customers can compare options and prices, as well as quickly find locations where they can purchase their tickets. Although this platform is available in 90 countries, it is primarily aimed at enterprise partners.

Google APIs are open, well-documented, and widely used across industries. Their API allows developers to access this data to search and compare airline flight prices.

 

Skyscanner Flight APIs

 

Skyscanner is a metasearch and travel agency that has 100 million monthly users who research and book tour packages such as flights, hotels, and car rentals. They compare thousands of routes and providers to help users find flights and tickets all over the world, allowing customers and businesses to take benefit of the best deals at all times.

 

There are two versions of the Skyscanner API:

 

The Airline Price Review API allows you to extract the best deals quotes from their cache prices. This allows you to create flexible searches. The disadvantage is that prices for less popular destinations are not updated very often. As a result, when the price changes, your users could not see the updated price.

The current flight prices API displays the exact fares at any time. However, customers should enter the exact time and route for each search. This is useful when comparing prices for specific dates, routes, or both.

 

Travelfusion API

 

Travelfusion is a flight and hotel aggregator that works with both low-cost and legacy airlines. The company actively supports the IATA NDC initiative and provides XML APIs to travel agencies and suppliers. You can search and book flights utilizing their inventory.

 

Kiwi APIs

 

Kiwi.com is a Czech online travel agency. Kiwi.com's website offers a fare aggregator, metasearch engine, and airline ticket booking. You can use their API to search flight data and make bookings that earn commissions.

 

2. NDC integration for merchandising and rich content

 

NDC is an IATA standard that requires airlines worldwide to provide direct connections to travel agencies and technology companies. These standards increase the effectiveness of communications between airlines and travel agents by providing full and rich airline content as well as providing a transparent shopping experience. For all fare types, travel agents can access ancillary content as well as the last available seat.

 

3. Flight data, schedules, and fares

 

Trawex design flight software helps travelers with timely notifications before a departure, tracks flight status, and alerts about delays. To provide such services, you must obtain detailed information about flights, connections, and weather. So, the final group of air travel APIs is all connectivity options that aid in the collection of technical and specific flight data.
  

4. Direct hotel booking with PMSs and channel managers

 

Direct connection via property management (PMS)- 

 

A PMS plays an important role in running the hotel’s operations smoothly. It allows hoteliers like you to manage day-to-day operations and complete all tasks more effectively and precisely. A hotel property management system allows users to easily manage, schedule, and organize all of their daily operations.

These solutions serve as the central database for all hoteliers. In a digital world, hotel property management systems (PMSs) allow you to manage all of your inventories, guest billing, reservation system, check-ins, housekeeping, and bookings.

 

Connection via channel managers.

 

A hotel channel manager is a tool that allows hotels to increase their online reach and visibility by listing on multiple hotel booking sites and managing their rates, availability, and bookings more easily.

 

5. Hotel booking APIs by aggregators: GDSs, connectivity providers, and switches

 

Global Distribution Systems

 

Global Distribution System has transformed to be an integral part of the hotel industry these days. Hotels that work with Global Distribution Systems can effectively connect to a huge number of customers. GDS provides a huge marketplace for hotels by connecting them to a larger network of travel agents. Travel agencies that integrate GDS allow customers to book online hotel rooms at their preferred locations that are connected to the GDS network.

 

Switches and connectivity providers

 

Channel managers and switches are very similar. They connect to the central reservation systems of hotels and reroute data from suppliers to distributors, giving both a single point of contact and a switch.

 

DerbySoft: connectivity APIs for booking and content

 

DerbySoft is the industry's leading provider of high-performance distribution services. DerbySoft provides high-performance distribution services to various businesses in the hospitality industry that connect to serve customers.

 

6. Wholesale hotel booking with bed banks

 

Hotelbeds, WebBeds, JacTravel, DOTW, Bonotel, HotelsPro, Travco, and others are the leading hotel bedbanks. These hotel suppliers partner with a large number of international hotels and resorts to provide the best selection of hotel accommodations at the best prices.

 

Hotelbeds APIs

 

HotelBeds is a leading Bedbank and a business-to-business provider of travel industry services. HotelBeds is a rapidly growing business that is a continuous leader in the modern trends of the global travel industry. 

HotelBeds offers reliability for on-time payments with a proven track record of adhering to established schedules. Through HotelBeds, you can gain access to a global network that provides numerous benefits, including massive brand exposure and access to smaller OTAs that would otherwise be difficult to reach.

 

WebBeds

 

WebBeds is the largest B2B accommodation supplier to the tourism industry. WebBeds provides thousands of travel trade clients with the choice of 200,000 hotels in nearly 10,000 destinations.

 

JacTravel

 

JacTravel is a leading supplier of hotel accommodations to the global travel industry as well as a provider of specialist inbound group travel services to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Europe. With JacTravel's multi-channel distribution capabilities and diverse global customer base, you can gain worldwide exposure for your hotel and maximize revenue all year long. With access to over 175,000 hotels in over 10,000 major cities.

 

DOTW

 

Destination of the World (DOTW) is a leading wholesaler of B2B travel wholesalers. DOTW is linked to hotels in more than 1,200 cities with most located in Asian countries such as UAE, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The DOTW hotel API interface enables travel agents and tour operators to provide partners and clients with features such as hotel bookings, tour packages, transfers, and other activities.

 

Bonotel API

 

Bonotel is a leading aggregator and wholesale distributor of branded and boutique luxury hotel rooms to a large international wholesale client base. The Bonotel hotel API enables the travel agent to connect to 2,800 hotels worldwide and provide seamless service to its customers.

 

HotelsPro

 

HotelsPro API is a leading European travel wholesaler with expertise in next-generation API, providing clients with a fully interactive, cutting-edge booking system.

The integration of HotelsPro API allows travel agencies and tour operators to book a large number of hotels with instant confirmation and large allotments. It offers instant confirmation from its diverse portfolio of 50,000+ hotels in 15,000+ destinations around the world.

 

Travco XML API

 

Travco is a leading global hotel wholesaler. Travco hotel API integration enables online travel agencies to simplify and ease the searching and booking of accommodation from the diverse selection of hotel suppliers connected with Travco tourism. Travco offers an exceptional selection of global hotel accommodations at the lowest costs by partnering with thousands of international hotels.

 

7. Partner rooms reservations: APIs by OTAs

 

Expedia Partner Solutions API

 

Expedia EAN, as part of one of the world's largest travel companies and with 20 years of travel technology innovation experience, provides cutting-edge technology, reliable products, and a wide range of solutions to deliver instant conversions.

Expedia has one of the largest accommodation inventories, with a global presence of over 350,000 accommodations in popular travel destinations, as well as a strong team of more than 5,000 affiliates in the Expedia Affiliate Network.

This well-designed framework offers an inventory of over 700,000 properties in approximately 20,000 cities worldwide, with relevant and accurate information displayed for each one.

This platform offers your guests discounts of up to 60% off, resulting in increased conversions and revenue for your business.

 

Booking.com APIs

 

Booking.com, as one of the world's largest travel platforms for well-known brands and small and medium-sized businesses, enables properties all over the world to reach a worldwide audience and grow their businesses.

It is available in over 40 languages, promotes 1.4 million properties, and covers 121,000 destinations across 228 countries. Booking.com processes over 1.5 million online bookings every day. Every day, over 1,000,000 room nights are reserved on Booking.com.

This Booking.com API XML Integration can be used by travel agents, travel agencies, and travel management companies to provide customers with more choices for each booking at reasonable rates.

 

Booking.com APIs offer many features that focus on:

 

• Content management. Create rooms, prices, and rules, then connect this information to Booking.com.

• Assess availability and pricing. Download stock amounts, prices, and price availability restrictions.

• Reservations. Booking.com provides detailed information on reservations, changes, and cancellations.

• Promotions. Make promotions for specific periods and customer types.

• Reports. Report issues with credit cards, vendors when booking after check-in, and more.

 

Priceline API

 

Priceline.com is a major player in the online travel industry. It is a marketing engine that increases your hotel's visibility and gives you access to over 13 million potential guests. Consumers can find accommodations with a best-price guarantee, free cancellations, and pay-at-arrival thanks to accessing over 600,000 properties of all types.

 

8. Hotel and room mapping APIs

 

Both OTAs and suppliers benefit from hotel mapping. It enables OTAs to provide the best possible offerings by mapping data from multiple sources.

 

GIATA API

 

GIATA, the world's largest hotel database, today announced a strategic partnership with solutions, a booking engine company with over 500 connections for travel agencies and tour operators. Thousands of OTAs, travel agencies, portals, tour operators, DMCs, and hotels use GIATA data and distribution solutions to manage their in-house databases. This integration would enable your clients who have multiple hotel API suppliers to use GIATA's hotel mapping and de-duplication service Multi-Codes to showcase unique hotel content to their customers all over various sales channels.

 

Gimmonix Mapping.Works APIs

 

Gimmonix is a technology company that uses automated mapping technology, API connectivity, and profit optimization tools to help travel businesses increase revenue and productivity.

With its cutting-edge, web-based products, Gimmonix pushes the limits of technology to assist travel businesses in minimizing duplication and maximizing performance. 

Gimmonix is a rapidly growing technology company that is at the forefront of hotel supplier aggregation and distribution technology, offering aggregation and optimization services to its travel partners.

 

9. Car rental booking: Rentalcars.com by Booking Holdings and CarTrawler integration to reach the largest car rental pools

 

Here, we've highlighted some of the best car rental and taxi companies in the world. These companies range from Nova Car Hire to Car del Mar, Auto Europe, and Sunny Cars.

This list will be useful for online travel agents looking to expand their businesses by adding a new service. Additionally, you can expect increased revenues as a result, as well as growth as an all-around travel provider. Furthermore, improving your customer service will assist you in growing your travel agency into a larger enterprise.

Find below car hire suppliers with XML API integration facilities, ideal for online travel businesses wishing to sell car hire services with other products.

 

Rentalcars.com

 

Rentalcars.com is the world’s largest car rental booking platform, with over 800 car companies at 60,000 locations in 163 countries. Rentalcars.com, founded in 2004, provides competitive car rental rates in over 160 countries and 40 languages. 

They want to ensure that their customers have access to global car rental services at the lowest prices so that you can not only save time by dealing with just one company but also have confidence that you are getting excellent value for money as well as great service.

 

CarTrawler

 

CarTrawler is the leading B2B travel technology platform in the world. CarTrawler collaborates with many of the world's largest travel brands. CarTrawler offers a highly efficient route to the market for car rental, private transfer, and rail solutions. 

They meet year-round demand for their services from over 2,000 travel companies. They enable them to optimize the revenue potential of their existing website by offering their customers a broader range of ground transportation services via a single, intelligent booking engine.

 

10. Tours, attractions, and experiences

 

Tours, attractions, and experiences are one of the fastest-growing online travel segments. The Tours and Experiences API help your clients choose the best trip plan for them. It also offers your customers a secure and fast online booking platform.

 

Viator APIs

 

Viator is the world's leading resource for researching, discovering, and booking the world's best travel experiences. Becoming a Viator Travel Partner means customers can be searching and book their range of thousands of sightseeing, tours, attractions, and transfers in 75+ countries and over 450 destinations globally. You'll also earn commission on every sale.

 

Rezdy API

 

Rezdy is yet another T&A channel management service that connects suppliers with travel agents and travel agencies. Rezdy API is also classified as either a supplier or an OTA. Currently, the API can be used for package bundling as it provides access to:

• T&A

• Car rentals

• Charters

• Shuttle buses

 

Rezgo API

 

While Rezgo emerges to be a standard T&A channel management solution, it includes an open-source front-end booking engine as well as an open-source parser. To use that API, however, you must have a paid Rezgo account. The API is dedicated to developing T&A booking solutions with a maximum request rate of 4,000 per hour.

 

How to Choose the Right Travel API?

 

 

If you are looking to provide highly customized expertise in implementing world-class travel booking services to your clients using APIs, we would like to introduce our Travel API Integration service.

In a nutshell, Trawex's development team is skilled in integrating third-party APIs, web services, and XML for global travel companies. We offer complete API integration solutions in the travel domain, as well as B2C / B2B travel booking systems built with XML connectivity.

It gives you access to thousands of airlines, hotels, buses, and other important travel content from around the world. It is simple to integrate and expand on your existing travel offerings.

Over the years, we have assisted our clients in developing a highly secure, flexible, and API-integrated travel portal that has assisted them in bringing conversions.

Our travel API can allow you to add live pricing and booking features with multiple supplier integrations. By integrating Travel API (bus booking API, flight booking API, hotel booking API) with your travel website, you can enable customers to search for availability, retrieve your content and descriptions, and simply make bookings.

Travel Booking API is our standardized XML interface solution for travel agencies, which provides a simple set of XML requests and responses. By integrating our travel API, you can search any of our travel suppliers, make bookings with them, retrieve information from existing bookings, create and retrieve customers, fetch flight, bus, and hotel content, and so on.

Once the Flight API, Bus API, and Hotel API have been integrated with your travel booking portal, you can instantly start offering travel solutions to customers online and generate higher revenue with high traffic.

 

Final thoughts

 

 

To stay ahead of the competition, online travel companies must use Travel and Booking APIs. This allows you to broaden your market reach and strengthen your relationships with industry partners. This also strengthens your customer relationships and gives your business the potential to innovate and grow.

As the world, travel, and hospitality industries become more interconnected, it's critical to collaborate with the best modern APIs to get the right data and provide the most value to your customers.

If you want to use travel APIs in your project but don’t know how to start, contact Trawex for a free consultation.