To meet the constantly changing consumer demands, the travel industry giants adopt diverse strategies. They majorly focus on time and cost efficiency, the two highly essential factors shaping their business growth. A Statista report finds out that online global travel revenue accounts for a staggering 69.6% of the total travel and tourism sales. This underlines the future possibility of business growth for travel agencies. Travel API integration is one strategy that stands out in the buzzing travel sector. Let us dive deeper into the realm of the travel industry and how APIs are becoming a transformative component for travel agents.
What is a travel booking API?
Travel reservation APIs are web solutions that allow travel agents to gather information on hotels, flights, and other travel-related services in real-time. APIs are integrated into the travel agency’s portal or online solution through the web. This gives a hassle-free booking experience allowing them to easily compare and confirm online bookings for the customers. A travel API for OTA’s provides the following services:
- Uninterrupted information updates
- Access to hotel and airline’s inventory
- Cashback offers and discount coupons
- Affordable flight tickets and hotel bookings
Types of Travel Booking APIs
1. Flight booking API
There is a huge number of airlines currently operating in the world. For travel agents to find the most suitable ticket can feel like searching for a needle in the haystack. To ease their pain, travel agencies can opt for flight booking APIs that give them access to the airline’s internal ticket details and prices. This helps tour companies in providing efficient services to their customers, leading to improved user satisfaction.
2. Hotel booking API
Hotel Booking API is a highly useful solution by which travel agencies can obtain real-time information on hotel chains and their inventories to select the best rooms for their clients. It facilitates the delivery of the best available prices and room selection, besides offering unique promotions to customers through the website of the agency. A Hotel Booking API ensures smooth data transfers, instant bookings, and increases satisfaction, optimizes processes, and improves the competitiveness of a travel agency.
3. Car rental API
A car rental API also serves a purpose similar to that of flight and hotel APIs. Once integrated into the travel agency’s system, the API gives in-depth information and real-time updates on the car rental company’s service charges, availability, schedules, etc. Travel agents can always seek help from a reliable Travel API provider in India to help them with the integration.
Benefits of Travel API integration
1. Quick bookings
Time waits for no one, not even for a travel agency that has innumerable tasks to complete. This is why travel agents need the assistance of online travel APIs that help them with quick bookings. The booking time significantly decreases when all the details are readily available on the screen. This also saves time that the agency would spend on researching.
2. Affordable prices
With direct access to the service provider’s inventory, tour companies get the opportunity to offer bookings at pocket-friendly prices. Travel agencies that partner with airlines, hotels, and car rental providers enjoy the benefit of various loyalty programs and discounted fares.
3. Impressive service offerings
Personalization is an exceptional way of building a strong and loyal customer base. Travel companies can effortlessly make their customers fall in love with them by offering personalized and customized tour packages. This portrays them as a reliable brand in front of their customers, allowing for a long-term relationship.
4. Cashback offers
Apart from tailor-made tour packages, travel APIs help in leveraging loyalty programs. With effortless integration, travel agencies can offer reward points and cashback offers. This helps them boost customer satisfaction, leading to higher revenue and profits.
5. Real-time updates
Travel APIs help to update the travel agency’s systems directly by pulling information from different services at any time. This ensures direct access to the latest details about flights, hotels, and car rentals regarding the possibilities, prices, and time schedules. They also keep travel agencies informed on current options to provide clients with appropriate and relevant information.
Conclusion
Travel agencies invest a great deal of money in various technologies to automate and streamline their tasks. Travel companies searching for effective ways of achieving customer satisfaction with minimum investment should try Travel API integration. The process not only provides services at lower prices but it also streamlines the complete travel booking process. This allows travel agents to focus on other important tasks like designing marketing campaigns, creating business strategies, etc. Travel agencies can contact a professional API service provider like TBOHolidays to help them with the integration process.
Travel API Integration FAQs
The travel agency raises the request to car rental companies for integration. A professional service provider integrates the API functionality into the agency’s online travel solution, which is then directly connected with the car rental company’s internal systems.
Yes, hotel APIs give travel agents direct access to the hotel’s inventory. This also includes discounted hotel room prices.
The timeline is not fixed but completing the integration to an existing travel agency portal takes about 2-4 months based on your requirements.
Travel APIs enable quick booking confirmations since travel agents have everything readily available. They also sell flight and train tickets, hotel rooms at affordable prices with attractive discounts.
Pratyush Kumar Srivastava is a seasoned expert in B2B travel writing with years of experience in the industry. With a deep understanding of the intricacies of travel technology, supplier relationships, and market trends, Pratyush offers valuable insights to help businesses optimize their travel booking strategies. Passionate about innovation and efficiency, he is dedicated to guiding travel agencies through the complexities of modern distribution channels to achieve growth and success.
