Internet booking engine

An Internet Booking Engine (IBE for internet booking engine ), rarely also online booking engine (OBE for online booking engine ), is a usually server-side software for booking of travel services ( flights, hotels, car rentals, package holidays) over the Internet. Due to the automated search for specific criteria ( distance, date, price, etc. ) an IBE can be fast, may already be accurately costed and / or vacancy- tested, generate quotes. Thus IBE form the core of an online travel agencies.

Distinction B2C and B2B

The majority of bookings made ​​through the web pages that are free accessible by the user via the Internet and to the booking process usually require a login example TeMyra.Consumer HitchHiker. Since this is for the most part to private clients, it is called for B2C Business to Customer IBE. In addition, there is the B2B Business to Business IBE. For special versions have been developed for use by employees in the travel agency, in this case one speaks of Counter IBE ( as a counter to the switch / bar here is in the travel agency called ). Examples in Germany are the Amadeus Fare Wizard, TeMyra.Agent, Sabre Flight Express, the Ypsilon.net B2B Agentweb and BistroPortal TravelTainment. In addition to the clear benefits regarding Search speed and depth of these offers are also travel agencies that do not have their own access to a computer reservation system or do not have sufficient knowledge of the oftmal still necessary cryptic entries. The company's service travel agencies that specialize in the sale of travel services to companies also use special versions, among other things, the travel policy (including the number and cost of flights per employee per year, frequent flyer programs, billing by cost center etc. ) in a special consider ways. Example of this is e-Travel Aergo. Allen B2B IBE is usually a login -controlled access in common that makes the booking engine only for certain groups of customers reachable.

Access to computer reservation systems ( CRS)

As a rule, an IBE must be permanently connected to one or more computer reservation system to check rates and vacancies in real time and a reservation for later processing, eg be able to make through a travel agent.

Data storage ( caching)

To reduce the query load and costs the users submit questions and the answers are kept on it for a certain period, the greater the number of users of an IBE per unit time, the greater and current is this so-called cache in the rule. With the increased incidence of metasearch engines / price comparisons in the German market since about 2008, the importance of the cache increases abruptly because a user query on a Metasearchengine / price comparison in the background caused a multiple of searches on various IBE and thus into the connected computer reservation system in most cases. This is only represented in terms of costs by as high a percentage of these queries can be answered from the cache.

Screen Scraping

Just for booking of so-called low -cost flights is often in the background, only the airline's website read out ( screen scraping ), as these are often not available on the CRS. Recently, there have been several court cases that have dealt with the admissibility of this procedure. Thus, the Irish budget airline Ryanair, which itself sells their travel services to almost 100% on the Web, judicial means multiply the use of its website by foreign IBE tries to prevent.

Tariff data and calculation

In general, tariff data from the CRS or from external databases consolidators, tour operators or tourism service providers are used. Common formats for the distribution of tariff and vacancy data in Germany are STADAF and STADAF2 (Standard Dataset Flight), VFE ( visualFares Entry) and ATPCO. It is on this basis for an online travel agency the possibility of a complex calculation of own margin.

Dissemination and providers in Germany

In the meantime, be made almost half of all bookings with a IBE especially in aviation. A particularly high proportion is less complex products (eg intra-European flights). However, for more complex travel services ( fork flights, tours, Stopover ), many customers still prefer the transition into stationary travel agency. In addition to in-house developments of online travel agents, airlines and tour operators, there are a number multitenant IBE that. Against monthly or can be integrated booking depending from an online travel agency on its website One of the largest providers of such " free" IBE in Germany include Partners Solutions, HitchHiker, InterRes, Maxviva technologies and Ypsilon.net in flight operations and traffic, LMWEB and travel tainment in the package tour area.

Market development

On July 1, 2010 Google officially announced the acquisition of ITA Software for $ 700 million known. Google wants its own account while improving the online search for fares and availability instantly, taking advantage of the years of experience and expertise of ITA in this area. However, Google does not plan to thereby qualify themselves as an online travel agency and even to sell tickets, but seeks a more targeted and thus higher quality forwarding on the websites of airlines and online travel agents. This acquisition was a heated debate in advance in the market, as Google so far a significant proportion of its income through paid search marketing (SMM ), eg has generated through its Adwords program through ads online travel agencies and airlines, and these in turn were afraid that Google wanted to make them with its own product competition.

  • Press Releases from Google to acquire ITA
  • Press information on the takeover at welt.de

Swell

  • Declaration of IBE in tourism Manual
  • Importance of metasearch engines in welt.de
  • Web application
Cache (computing)
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