Steelkiwi’s tip: GDSs are used to connect OTAs to general data on all modes of transport and accomodation. Small online travel agencies offering one or two types of services (car rentals, hotel reservations) should concentrate on more dedicated systems.
- For flight reservations: Innovata flight API or OAG for flight schedules, flight statuses, and delays
- For hotel reservations: Hotelbeds, Hotel Content API, JackTravel, DOTW, HotelsPro, Travco
- For content and property mapping: GIATA, Leonardo APIs, Mapping.Works
- For car rentals: Rentalcars.com, CarTrawler
- For business travel management: Concur, Tripit
- For reviews and ratings: TripAdvisor Content API
Features
With Expedia, online booking becomes personal thanks to the tools and features the aggregator offers. This is how Expedia looked back in 1996:
And this is how it looks twenty-five years later, in 2021.
The evolution is obvious. Back in 1996, the aggregator-to-be offered only a few features, while today the feature set is wide enough to make it easy to plan any trip.
- Stays
