Thread: online booking

Hi

We are tour company based in Kathmandu, Nepal. We would like to have online hotel and airline ticket booking system in our website. Can any body help us to find the procedure of this system.

You would have to customize an order form and attatch it to the product to get the information you need for the booking/reservations. First create the form that you need in soho, then create the product and on the advanced tab click require data from: drop down form. This will attatch the form to their order. To add more than one person to the reservation you would set this up in variations, along with the price differences etc.

Karen

Hi Karen,

Thank you for your mail. But I want ready templates if possible so that I can just put date only. I prefer to do travel site as travelocity.com cheapoair.com etc. When visitors make booking they get confirmation of flights, e-tickets, etc. In this case I think supplier ( airline, hotel ) should be connected directly to our website's booking system. I would like to find those kind of service provider.

Originally Posted by chitragurung

When visitors make booking they get confirmation of flights, e-tickets, etc. In this case I think supplier ( airline, hotel ) should be connected directly to our website's booking system. I would like to find those kind of service provider.

Not possible.

As a tour operator, you are not permitted to collect money, create tickets, make reservations, or confirm travel. You need to not only be an IATAN agency, you must also be a full service ticketing agency with PLATES (which is the certified designation as a bona-fide ticketing agency).
You should look into what being a member of USTOA means and what benefits you might enjoy first. Another option for you to consider may be the IAITO (for internet operators).

If you have an IATAN recognized Agency status, you may be allowed to buy travel for clients through a wholesaler, and many have "partner" programs that allow you to have a banner over a website booking engine that they host on your behalf, so it appears that it is your own site, your own booking engine, but in fact it is their "co-branded" front-end that they maintain for you (they supply your clients with travel arrangements, book air, cut tickets, send confirmations, collect money, issues invoices, etc. and pay you commissions for the activity you generate). see an example here

If you reach a certain status with a wholesaler, they may allow you to use a proprietary script on your site, but is it still under their maintenance and control although it IS on your site and is branded with your brand wholly. But, this is for a select few, and usually for those who process a great deal of consistent business. see example here


The last alternative is to simply enroll in an Affiliate program that will allow you to make a commission for referring business to those organizations you mentioned above, but might also include Orbitz, Expedia, cruise lines, trains, charters, rental cars, and more. see this example how you might use an affiliate program(s)

The thing is, without being a full-services agency with plates, there is no way you can create any tickets, collect any money, or produce any paper. Period.

Your only other alternative is to follow Karen's suggestion by setting up a "proxy" booking service (basically an emailCommerce system) where you collect information from clients and manually book for them (usually from a wholesaler), but even then, there are protocols to follow that would not seemingly fit a Soholaunch/cart application.

Hi,

Many thanks for your mail. We are IATA agent which means we can sale airline tickets. As per Nepalese tourism act we can do all kinds of travel related services including tour, ticketing, hotel etc at a place. I think if we want to have subsidiary in USA in that case we may need some affialiation with USTOA or IATO. If possible we want to choose affiliate program but we do not how know it works. I saw website you recommended but how it works ? Please can you tell us, if possible so that we can consider it.

Simply reply to the email for a definitive response!

1. Contact ARC to see how your authorization may extend to you according to whichever system you are using (WorldSpan, Apollo, Sabre, etc.). IF in fact you ticket, there are a few interfaces you may select to use a script to load onto your site.

2. If you can qualify, inquire with a wholesaler to use their booking engines in either of the two fashions I mentioned. (This would be your best bet if you cannot qualify for an ARC interface .... an affiliate program is really only worthwhile if you are interested in the most basic B2C type application).

There are a few wholesalers worth referring to you for your consideration upon replying to the email you already received.

Hi

Thank you for your mail. I think I should consider affiliate program available.

Hello Chitra. all of what's been said in prior replies is true and has tought us all on the "online booking" and "offline booking". So, we should be thankful to those who shared their expertise.
Here is my suggestion to you, though. Check out "YTB Travel Network". They offer a booking system where you may utilize your Company name and take advantage of a online booking system that compares to "flight search engine" mechanisms.
There is a small investment involved.
They also offer good customer services for the "RTAs" (Referring Travel Agents) who subscribe to their product and work under their rules and regulations.
Their site offers a International Flights booking thread that might just serve your purpose.
I use the system and it works out great for my Company.
www.worldtravelplanners.com

Good luck, friend.

Marcos.

Check http://hotscripts.com. There are several booking scripts that retrieve all the information (hotels, airlines, etc) from a central server so it automatically keeps it up to date for you.

Originally Posted by Watdaflip

Check http://hotscripts.com. There are several booking scripts that retrieve all the information (hotels, airlines, etc) from a central server so it automatically keeps it up to date for you.

These 'reservation scripts' would work only if they booked their own "in-house" supplied and operated tours or lodging, and did not try to get into other ends of the business they mentioned earlier (which is highly regulated).

If they want to appear to be more than they are, YTB might work, but they would need to be absolutely certain they comply with any restrictions that may exist being out of the country (the US) and in their particular country (both for funding issues and travel sales in general).

Thank you all of you.

We are researching which one is best for our site. We appreciate your co-operation.

By the way we asked some developer they estimated few thousand dollar so we skipped it. We should consider something you guys recommended.

Hi,

I try to visit YTB site but I could not find their contact email, etc.

Originally Posted by marcosdasilva

Hello Chitra. all of what's been said in prior replies is true and has tought us all on the "online booking" and "offline booking". So, we should be thankful to those who shared their expertise.
Here is my suggestion to you, though. Check out "YTB Travel Network". They offer a booking system where you may utilize your Company name and take advantage of a online booking system that compares to "flight search engine" mechanisms.
There is a small investment involved.
They also offer good customer services for the "RTAs" (Referring Travel Agents) who subscribe to their product and work under their rules and regulations.
Their site offers a International Flights booking thread that might just serve your purpose.
I use the system and it works out great for my Company.
www.worldtravelplanners.com

Good luck, friend.

Marcos.

Go to www.worldtravelplanners.com; Click on the "Help" tab and then International Flight Search FAQs - Click Here.
Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Marcos.

I wrote mail to YTB but nothing happen.

How did you used it ?

Hey good friend.
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.
I was out of the country for a while.
I would suggest trying the following:
Call this number for customer assistance: 001 800 243 4450
or log on to: www.ytb.com and go through the presentation process.

Good luck.

Marcos.

www.worldtravelplanners.com

Hi Buddy,

Nice to see someone from travel industry. First of all, i wanna tell you that ytb is a travel MLM(pyramid) company, very popular in north america. I am not sure if it serves in Nepal too. You can not join it by yourself, you have to become a member under someone e.g marcosdasilva. So contact someone who is already member of ytb. Also, it will not make a search engine for you. They will give you a specified url to use for booking.
API technology is the solution of wat u r looking for. If you want to make a website with a search engine which retrive data from different consolidators, wholesalres, airlines, or from your data etc and display it on ur website and if client buy from your website, it will go to the consolidators database buy it and give the customer their e ticket or confirmation no. Application programming interface can do that for you. For more info check out the website, www.goquo.com . i believe thats wat u r looking for.
If you dont get the answer of your question, keeping asking the question. There are so many helpful techi experts people. I have researched a little bit on that and i wanna know more about this technology. If some one can help, that would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

GoQuo is a 3rd tier reseller, and not a direct seller: even the "select vendors" they have partnered with to fulfill most of the consolidated sales for their scripts are not preferred (and there is no ability to specify others as additional options).

Please re-read the posts above ....(especially numbers 4, 6, and 10).... if (as mentioned) this Nepalese "operator" is in fact as qualified as as stated, he can have a script from one of the largest wholesalers or tour consolidators on his own site or even a generically hosted one on his behalf. There is no need to deal with resellers or "independent sources" or even consider such unworthy avenues such as YTB or GoQuo .... but as reiterated multiple times above, I believe there is some confusion as to the actual status of this company, and an obvious disconnect in understanding abilities and limitations.


This is a very controlled industry, and there is not an opportunity to "fake it until you make it"!

Hi Vasili

Thnx for ur expert views. Actually, i am not expert in this field and i apologize if wrote something wrong. My purpose for that post was to tell about API technology and not for ytb and goquo. I m also working on this project, so let me explain you my requirement if u can put some light on that:
I am making a search engine in website which can do following things:
1) Go to different tour operators data base
2) Check the availabilty of product
3) If its available, display the price in our website.
4) If client bought it from our site, they will get confirmation no. or ticket no. in real time and these confirmation no. is from tour operators.

I am from Canada and i m discussing this project with www.convergentware.com and www.softvoyage.com.
They say that they can provide a solution in which they connect your website with all the major tour operator, wholesaler and consolidator of your choice. we dont have to buy anything from software co. they jus connect with them . http://www.convergentware.com/pressk...e-Complete.pdf for detailed info.

If anyone know any alternate methods to do that, that would be much appreciated b.coz these companies charge good amount of money.

Does any one know how to connect with other websites using API. not particularly for travel business. e.g we connect google map in our website using api etc, anything like that.

Please correct me if am wrong. your feedback is welcome

Thank you

You are over-complicating things, and someone is taking you for a ride for your money: the examples I provided above of different types of officially sponsored industry website interfaces are in fact various forms of API scripts, both hosted and embedded.

Your "idea" to re-create or mimic what is already a guarded technology is a fruitless venture, and will cause you more frustration and expense than it is worth. In my opinion, that is. (But then, what do I know, after negotiating for a year back in 1999 with Worldspan/American Express Travel/Travel Impressions to develop a product that eventually emerged as Travelocity, only to be BETA at Elite Travel first???)
> Why pay Convergent (or anyone) for an interface if the suppliers/vendors will not feed you the data because of your "status" --- if you have status, then why not simply apply to someone like Travel Impressions for the best booking engine overall directly??? See...this is where I question the validity of what you guys are trying to do...

Back to your "project description": There is no possible manner in which to "merge" different systems, different copmpanies, different "platforms" into a cohesive functional script for private use. Period. They all work with specific encryption and coding, and expecting to blend a wholesaler, a tour operator, and a booking portal to produce unique results is not only impossible, but more likely to get you into hot water as well. Covergence will only be able to provide a short list of 'basic' vendors (not "preferred" providers), as there is a definitive wall against even sharing code for processing of credit cards, let alone booking/reservation code!

There are a number of ways to accomplish the same goal, however, and many of the available options (scripts ) are even free or little cost, allowing you to "tweak" them to do nearly exactly what you want them to do -- often it is a simple matter of re-labeling the fields, or including your own set of input providers (yet still be functionally desireable without much appearance of compromise).
Specifically, you might be able to find a "Search" script that would querry a set of vendors and return results based on budget, destination, etc. (Take a look at this thread, especially this post to see if you grasp the concept discussed and can understand how to adapt the same principle to your project by examining the samples listed)
But, like I have been saying all along, you cannot hope to fake it when it comes to travel: the booking engines and systems are available as API scripts or hosted sites but only to select, qualified agencies!

When it comes time to utilize any of these, if you intend to build a website easily with Blue Voda (no need to get real complicated unless you really want to), you can install the utility in a directory of it's own (as you would a forum, let's say) and present it on your page by using an Inline Frame (iFrame), so it would appear that this utility resides on the actual page of the website, but in truth it only presents.

"Reverse Engineering" technologies or methodologies of long-established industries is a thing of the past (since 9-11) despite the explosion of online promises of profitability: even moreso, industry players are more apt to exercise greater scrutiny to partner effectively in the long-run. My advice is to take the high road and rely on proven technologies and relationships and drop the hope of doing something "passable" on the cheap...

Thnx Vasili

Your information was very helpful. I learnt so many things in one forum that i couldn't learn while dealing with convergent people for 3 months. Jus to double check if i get everything correct. i m rephrasing it

1) Convergent and softvoyage use some sort of API scripts, so i dont have to pay them and i can get my own script
2) There is no way, we can merge all the companies into one platform for private use.(What do you mean by priate use though ?)
3) We are reputed travel agency in Toronto, we have IATA, ACTA, CLIA, TICO,Galileo etc almost every thing. We are already getting agents price by logging in to their website using our ID. So best thing we can do is go to Travel impression to get booking engine. (I m not sure wat you mean by status though)
4) I can get same type of scripts for little cost if not free. (But from where ?, is it from www.odesk.com or some differest sites too)

Now we should search for a good api script of booking engine and use it in iFrame. Anything else you would like to suggest as we are qualified travel agency and you said online booking is restricted to qualified agencies only. Thus i believe we should take advantage of that.

Your help is much appreciated.

Thanx alot.

LOL

1. Convergent and SoftVoyage sell their technology and "pre-packaged vendor travel solution" to anyone willing to pay. It is not free: either for a fee (or subscription) or percentage of your earnings. Steer clear!

2. No, there is no way you can find, write, develop, or create an interface to merge Galileo, Carnival, Trafalger, etc. into one packaged online "booking engine" on your own.

3. Apparently, you are an accredited agency, and thus "qualify" to inquire with Travel Impressions to establish a relationship (which I strongly suggest) that will benefit you greatly: not only are they the largest wholesaler, but as an American Express Travel Company, this opens other doors that would not be otherwise available to your company.

4. Once you have a working relationship with Travel Impressions, you have the ability to have a hosted solution (a booking engine on their server that is labeled with your ID and logo) or the ability to use their API booking engine that you can offer to your clients on your website. Either will give your clients the opportunity to book online themselves in real time from the single largest assortment of vacations, packages, flights, tours, etc. and you will still earn your standard agancy commissions (which are much higher than typical "affiliate" commissions ... but you know this, right?)


Again....some examples:
Travel Impressions Hosted/Co-Branded Solution
Travel Impressions API Web Solution (For Preferred Agencies)


I hope now you finally understand!



I still do not believe either of these solutions are available for the Original Poster in this thread, for two reasons: first, I do not believe from what he has stated or what I have learned from his sites/operation that he is indeed an accredited agency; and, the mere fact he is in Nepal makes any financial arrangements with most IATA and USTOA certified "vendors" out of reach.
(I also think that is why he could not follow up with even being approved as an affiliate for Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. nor even YTB!)
He would be better off picking up the concepts I keep mentioning about finding a free "search" script and re-configuring it to mimic the same functionality that is available to you with the TI solutions detailed above....

Hi Buddy

Now I understand the whole concept. I have the better view of wat i can do now. I dont have the words to thank you. But you are awesome. God Bless you.

Thank You Vasili

....and on we go!

How to contact travel Impression if I wanted to use their booking engine ?

Originally Posted by chitragurung

We are IATA [IATAN] agent [agency] which means we can sale airline tickets. As per Nepalese tourism act we can do all kinds of travel related services including tour, ticketing, hotel etc at a place. .

Originally Posted by chitragurung

How to contact travel Impression if I wanted to use their booking engine ?

I'm sorry ..... since you affirm qualified status (despite continued appearances of being a Tour Operator/Tour Provider), you should use the resources that have been distributed to all members in good standing to make official contacts and inquiries yourself --- it would be improper to make such a referral!

We found a free affiliate online booking engine. I am considering to use it.

Good for you! I suggested to you earlier that an Affiliate program might be the best way for you, and if the one you mentioned will approve you and offers the features you seek, then it is a win-win situation!

Good luck!

Thank you for your help.

Originally Posted by chitragurung

Thank you for your help.

....and on we go!