Digital travel sales are expected to surpass $481 billion worldwide this year according to eMarketer. With summer ending, travel brands are already planning for the winter season, each with their eye on maximizing their share of the bumper online travel revenues which the peak season creates.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Sean Sewell, co-founder and EMEA business development director, Performance Horizon.
The set-up
We’ve already seen many interesting developments this year. Google moved beyond being a third-party traffic referrer and entered the distribution space. This bold move, which allows consumers to book travel directly via its Hotel Finder, puts the search giant in direct competition with some of its biggest customers such as Hotels.com and Skyscanner.
Likewise, TripAdvisor has evolved beyond being just a travel content site and now allows consumers to read reviews and book all in one place.
Most consumers are unaware that they get this seamless experience thanks to something behind the scenes - application programming interfaces (APIs)
The solution
Specifically, it is booking APIs are changing where and how consumers book travel.
Here’s how booking APIs are driving change and how all parties - such as travel brands, digital marketing partners, publishers and consumers - benefit from an increased investment and integration of online and mobile booking APIs.
Also addressed are how travel brands and digital marketing partners are working to overcome booking API challenges.
Booking APIs are not new - far from it - so why are travel brands waking up to the potential of using booking APIs to optimize conversions and maximize inventory distribution?
First and foremost. it is the rapidly shifting sands of how consumers browse and buy. Most travel brands will tell you the same thing: people research flights and hotels on their phones in the morning and book on desktops later in the day.
While mobile experiences are getting better, many brands have not fully developed a streamlined mobile booking process.
Mobile is where digital marketing partners - such as Google, TripAdvisor, metasearch and OTAs - and booking APIs are a perfect match.
These partners understand mobile, not necessarily a core competency of a travel brand whose primary focus is putting planes in the air and providing great accommodations for guests.
By making their booking APIs available to a range of online and mobile partners, travel brands can increase market distribution and booking conversions beyond traditional partners, while stemming drop off rates by providing the most seamless customer experiences.
- Digital Marketing Partners
The benefits of booking APIs work both ways. Publishers other than metas, are leveraging booking APIs to both provide their readers with better experiences and boost their own profitability as a digital marketing partner.
Today’s consumers move on quickly if they can’t easily find information or a complete a transaction. For publishers large and small, eyeballs and time on site are like physical currency. In order to reduce bounce rate, publishers must provide experiences that enable readers to complete actions from start to finish all without leaving their site.
Reader’s Digest opened up travel booking directly from its online properties. This makes sense, as publishers know their readers best. By working with travel brands who have vast amounts of data (past bookings, frequent fliers, first class vs. economy), publishers can drive conversions and increase their revenues by providing readers with the most relevant offers.
It’s not all straightforward however.
Publishers have many challenges when using booking APIs, especially around credit card transactions, security, and data ownership. Many times, brands will control everything in order to secure customer data.
Overcoming challenges
In addition to the security issue, booking APIs can come with challenges around formatting and the investment to do so.
This is one painpoint IATA's New Distribution Capability (NDC) hopes to address.
As booking APIs evolve and become easier to implement and use, more and more partners will work directly with brands, increasing distribution and potentially reducing the need for more traditional tracking methods via affiliate networks and pure tracking providers.
And the technology is there for brands and their digital marketing partner to connect directly and share/track data in real time.
To summarize, I think the trend toward booking APIs that’s taken hold this year will set the stage for an exciting era in the travel vertical. Competition will increase as the lines continue to blur between metasearch engines and OTAs, and as Google aggressively expands its direct booking clients.
In general, the smartest brands and digital marketing partners will leverage booking APIs to unlock continued growth and profitability.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Sean Sewell, co-founder and EMEA business development director, Performance Horizon.
NB2: Shifting sands image via Shutterstock.