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In relation to this question that was asked a while back, I'd like to develop an API (like ITA, Amadeus, etc.) of my own to create my own booking engine (like a Kayak.com - Kayak.com allows booking through their site directly).

What would this take? What's involved?

I'm also wondering: If Kayak.com is scraping the information, how are they able to book plane tickets, hotels, etc. for customers directly on their site?

Community
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JBear
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Booking engines are built by companies that have direct relationships with the companies (airlines, hotels, etc) that they represent. These databases are definitely not built by scraping the airline sites for available fares, for instance.

Have you considered using something like http://itasoftware.com? I suspect what you are interested in is some unique value proposition around booking, not getting bogged down in creating relationships with all the airlines and hotels...

Brian Topping
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I was just researching the same thing. It seems that Kayak actually searches a large number of other sites to provide their pricing comparison results. Kayak itself has an api which is apparently no longer available for use, due to costs of misuse...but many many travel sites do the same thing as affiliates for other sites like expedia, viator, tripadvisor etc. Most of these have both affiliate and partner agent options. You might want to look at this link: http://www.programmableweb.com/news/5-travel-apis-comparison-to-booking/2007/10/29

Many of the sites also offer a white label website that will auto-update prices etc. and that allow you to make them look, fit and plug into your own site. There are also wordpress themes specificially designed to fit this...some free, some premium.

In addition to that, if you are not a travel agent, there are still ways to act as one with full licensing and use of sabre etc.

Most sites, kayak included, use these options with some complex programming, because, as @briantopping noted, establishing partnerships with that many hotels, airlines, etc. isn't something most individuals can manage...and even if you could, the big sites have higher commissions, because between massive advertising campaigns, thousands of employees, and tens or hundreds of thousands of affiliates, they drive the most sales. Hope that helps.

Brian Topping
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Allyson
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  • @JBear: Glad it helped, my answer was the other one though, I just edited this answer to change "answer above" to "@briantopping". Good luck! – Brian Topping Apr 27 '15 at 19:32
  • @BrianTopping - You're right. Initially, I just want to get up and running as quickly and cheaply as possible. The problem is that I can't seem to find an affiliate partnership or existing API that collects the information I need - the key differentiator to my SE/Booking Engine (besides QPX, which requires $800,000 annually - QPX Express doesn't give access to it). If the ancient GDS systems offer this vital bit of information, they're probably cost prohibitive as well. :( I may just have to start like mint.com and screen scrape. – JBear Apr 27 '15 at 21:15