Travel Technology indexes 53 providers publishing 385 APIs on the network, and exactly one of them scores exemplar. It is not a flight-shopping engine or a global distribution system. It is a hotel property management system. The companies whose entire business is moving travel inventory between systems are, on their public API record, among the weakest in their own industry.
The bands
| Band | Providers | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Exemplar | 1 | Oracle Hospitality 73.4, 59 APIs |
| Developing | 5 | Akia 49.3, Amadeus 48.5, Airbnb 45.9, OpenTravel Alliance 45.6, WeTravel 43.0 |
| Thin | 20 | Channex 36.8, Sabre 36.5, Expedia Group 34.7, Apaleo 34.4, Booking Holdings 27.2 |
| Emerging | 9 | Travelport 24.6, Delta Airlines 12.7 |
| Minimal | 17 | CarTrawler 9.8, Pace Revenue 3.3 |
And 22 of the 53 list zero APIs on their record: hotel property management systems, revenue managers, a visa platform, a hotel distribution trade association, and ITA Software, the airfare-shopping engine now part of Google.
What the record shows
The GDS layer is the gap. The industry’s sub-sector is Global Distribution Systems, and of the three companies that define it, Amadeus reaches developing with 40 APIs through its self-service program, Sabre sits in thin with 2, and Travelport in emerging with 1. These are the pipes every booking in the table above eventually flows through, and two of the three score below WeTravel, a booking and payments platform for group trips.
The standards body outscores the vendors. OpenTravel Alliance, a volunteer non-profit that has published the OTA XML message suite since 1999 and a model-driven 2.0 specification since, scores 45.6 with 8 APIs. That is above Sabre, Travelport, Expedia Group and Booking Holdings. The specification the industry claims to speak is better described in public than most of the systems that implement it.
The hotel side is where the contracts are. Oracle Hospitality’s 59 APIs, built on OPERA Cloud, are more than any other member publishes, and it is the only provider in the vertical to clear 50. Behind it the thin band is dominated by hotel connectivity: Channex, Apaleo, Beds24, HotelRunner, DerbySoft, SiteMinder, Cloudbeds. Hospitality technology has decided an integration partner program needs a public contract. Air distribution mostly has not.
Where to start
If you are building a stay product, begin with Oracle Hospitality for property systems and the channel managers in the thin band for distribution to online travel agencies. If you are building air, Amadeus is the only GDS with a deep, self-serve, published surface. If you are building to a standard, read OpenTravel Alliance first.
Takeaway
Travel is an industry of intermediaries, and the intermediaries are the ones not publishing. Seventeen minimal providers and twenty-two with no API on record describe a vertical that still integrates by partnership agreement rather than by contract. The cheapest move for Sabre and Travelport is the one Amadeus already made: put the self-serve contracts where a developer, or an agent, can read them before signing anything.
Browse the full membership at apis.io/industries/travel-technology/.