Many startups have joined the list of hundreds of companies that use data feeds from Skyscanner, the UK-based metasearch giant.
Skyscanner, which says it has more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, stands apart from most giant travel companies by providing access to its application programming interfaces (APIs) to developers for free.
Hitlist, a trip-inspiration app, has been using its APIs for a couple of years. Go Euro, the multi-modal European metasearch, uses the APIs as a back-fill. Pintrips, a fare-comparison tool, has used the APIs, too. Hellotrip, SeeUSoon, and Tripaya as well.
Lucky Trip
The newest travel startup to use its APIs is Lucky Trip, an iOS app where the user basically says, "This is my budget, where's can I go?" and with a single click gets options from the UK to up to 300 European destinations in a visually-oriented interface.
The app was launched a few weeks ago, and has been featured prominently in the UK Apple App store.
But it was back in December 2014 that CEO Tiff Burns and his brother and co-founder Alex Burns contacted Skyscanner for access to its flight data to sketch a prototype. Burns says:
"The technology behind the Skyscanner API is way ahead of anything else out there. We really like the ‘browse cache’ functionality which works super fast. The data structure is easy to work with, and there are some cool technical features that no other flight API offered.
"The Skyscanner API allows us to provide the cheapest flight prices from all possible origins in the UK to all of our destinations in Europe."
APIs at the right price
The startups come to Skyscanner for API keys because it's the rare free option. If you Google "free API search for flights", Skyscanner is the lone one mentioned.
Developers have to ask the company for separate API keys for air content, hotels, and car hire/rental through the Skyscanner for Business division.
Free (with reasonable restrictions on use) differentiates Skyscanner from other data providers. If you wanted to create a flight search engine or an agency, using data from the few global distribution systems (GDSs) would cost more than the typical startup can manage just for the search.
Second, data feeds from GDSs don't have deep linking to specific fares, and you need to be an agent to build a business around it. Skyscanner's APIs offer deep-linking, so you can send your users directly into the site of its travel partners, without being an agent.
So, what's in it for Skyscanner?
Well, for one thing, once companies reach a certain threshold of usage, Skyscanner requires a revenue-share deal. The revenue share incentivizes startups and companies to reinvest the money in the product, such as in additional marketing to drive more usage.
Filip Filipov, director of B2B at Skyscanner, said by phone:
"We want to support and spur on early-stage companies that are thinking of different ways that flight and hotel and car hire information can be done. We want to give developers the tools that will make them successful...."
"Our supply partners -- airlines, agencies, hotel leaders and car hire companies -- also benefit from the additional traffic, and alternate sources of traffic.... That's a way for Skyscanner to increase our revenue as a whole as well."
The Edinburgh-based company says it has 1,200 companies using its APIs, for redistributing content for flights, hotels, and car hire. The company says that its system optimizes the data calls, and that the optimization boosts the conversion rates and reduces empty hits on its partner suppliers' APIs.
It also claims that its APIs can provide a developer a better breadth of results than the search engine connectivity rivals provide because it has more extensive direct relationships with agents, resellers, and suppliers (such as hoteliers, car hire franchises) and thus access to great breadth of localized content. In Russia, will see the Russian agencies in results; in China, you will see the Chinese ones.
Not an overnight process
Skyscanner doesn't hand over API keys instantly. There is a turnaround time, because employees have to vet that the startup is legitimate and must generate the keys. (The company is considering releasing a self-service solution to give automatic access.)
The vetting is to make sure startups don't abuse the API by driving unqualified traffic or generating a lot of empty requests. That's also the explanation for the limit on how many calls startups are allowed to make, and caps on how many requests can be made per second. Says Filipov:
"Inexperienced startups might consider a solution that sometimes generates way too many requests for the return that comes back. We put that rate limit in with the idea that we want developers to experiment with what they need to do in order to prove the concept of an application or a website, but not tax the systems of our partners."
Filipov says the resulting projects can be inspiring.
"We definitely take a look at the different implementations of our API. Honestly we've had a wide range....
"Lucky Trip is a great example of a standalone app that is very focused on inspirational discovery, on taking the intimidation factor out of booking a short trip, which could absolutely live on it's own.
"It's really beautiful, you know, how those people come in without any restrictions and limitations and biases of how the industry works. They can create fantastic work. We've seen 15 or 20 examples of that from different developers....
"I hate to admit it but I probably have enough biases on my own to say, 'Oh, this is never going to work out.' And developers go ahead and do things and it has broad appeal, proving me wrong... "
Request access to Skyscanner's APIs
Related: Five travel APIs to beef up website user experience
If you're a developer in New York City, Tnooz is running a hackathon in Manhattan on November 13, 14 and 15. It's free for developers; there are prizes, and headline sponsors are Priceline, Sabre, Fareportal, and IBM. Click here to learn more about THack NYC.
For a non-technical view of this story's topic, read: How booking APIs are changing the online travel game
