If you are reading this article you probably already know what an API is. But just in case you were wondering, here is a quick explanation. API (Application Programming Interface) is a software medium that allows two programs to interact. So Travel APIs can do various sorts of things such as retrieving information about hotel and flight bookings and presenting it in different forms according to your needs. The same goes if we talk about restaurant reservations, public transport timetables, travel itineraries and other things. Basically, it collects a vast amount of data from one place, structures and passes it on to other applications to use. In this article, we are going to look at some of the best APIs to date. Amadeus APIs are available in two options: Self-Services APIs and Enterprise APIs. Each of them is comprised of several categories: Amadeus APIs Air (searching and booking the flights, prediction and analysis, schedule and seat maps, airport information and more) Hotel (searching and booking the hotels, hotel ratings) Destination content ( safety-rated locations, COVID restrictions, tours and activities) Trip (trip parser, predictions and recommendations) Enterprise APIs Air (customizable search, calculating, shopping and ticketing services) Booking Management (booking interactions) Car & Transfers (searching and booking) Cruise (searching and booking) Customer Profile (personal preferences, payment details and more) Hotel (searching and booking) Insurance (travel insurance booking and shopping) Payment (virtual cards) Queue Management Rail (searching and ticketing) So you can see that the set of APIs is different and the choice depends on your needs. While Self-Service APIs seem to be more traditional, Enterprise APIs allow for a customized experience. Sabre APIs The variety of travel APIs offered by is divided into three categories: Sabre The Sabre Platform (Travel Solutions APIs) The Sabre GDS (Airline Solutions APIs) SynXis Central Reservations (hospitality APIs) But for a more suitable fit, you can filter the 465 existing travel APIs by target audience, category, function, and product type. Typically would offer its classic Travelport Universal API (SOAP based), covering such services as: Travelport Air (flight search, flight booking), Car (car search, car booking), Rail (ticket search, ticket booking), Hotel (hotel search, hotel booking), Customers’ profiles and reservations management. But recently they’ve appeared to launch a pilot program Travelport Trip Services, which is REST based and optimized specifically to be used for mobile apps. The APIs are divided into “kits” for convenience (Air APIs, Trip Change Kit, Hotel Kit, Car APIs Kit, Payment Card Services API Kit). Even though it’s a pilot program not available for everybody, it seems very promising. AwardWallet offers several APIs to choose: AwardWallet Email Parsing API Web Parsing API Account Access API Email Parsing API allows you to retrieve the information from booking confirmation emails and use it (for example travel data for itinerary planning). It can also scan your email for any future (or previous) bookings to adjust the data. Web Parsing API extracts information from users’ online loyalty accounts and structures it in a needed format. Account Access API gives access to users’ AwardWallet accounts (if authorized) and shares the necessary information. Skyscanner flight search API will allow you to search flights, compare prices, and find the cheapest ticket and the best route. It started as a flight search engine, but now its travel services include car rental and hotel search. You can get Skyscanner APIs for free, but to achieve full functionality you will have to go through a vetting process. Skyscanner Flightstats APIs provide us with all the necessary information concerning flights, airports and aircrafts. This includes, but not limited to: weather forecast, flight ratings (time accuracy), flight tracking, flight status, flight amenities, delay index, connections, schedules and changes alerts. Essentially, Flighstats APIs are divided into two categories – Flex APIs and Trip Data Services. The first category delivers comprehensive data on commercial flights and airlines, whereas the second one focuses more on itinerary management. Flightstats APIs Tripit travel API collects information about users’ hotel and flight bookings to build an itinerary. Tripit is a free platform and it can be integrated into any travel websites or apps. It promises the process to be easy for travelers as one of the features available is the button “Add to Tripit”. By clicking the button on your site users automatically add their booking confirmations to their Tripit account. Tripit Concur API is similar to TripIt, but it is mostly used with business travelers. It helps with planning the itinerary, tracking the expenses, thus providing easier reimbursement. Concur API Booking travel API is one of the biggest hotel booking APIs. It shares the information about hotel inventory, real-time pricing and hotel rooms availability, as well as property descriptions, names of cities and hotels, facilities, photos. As far as the booking process is concerned, it can be done in two ways: you can either confirm the booking by redirecting the user to Booking.com or you can become partner and process the booking on your site. Booking travel API Tripadvisor Content API provides access to Tripadvisor content which is one of the richest in travel industry in terms of hotels and restaurants reviews and photos. Each item contains a set of details, such as: Tripadvisor Content API name and location detailed reviews rating pricing attraction type cuisine The travel API is free, but for API integration you have to register and go through minor evaluation process. Google Maps The APIs offered by are grouped into three products: Maps, Routes and Places, each containing a set of APIs. Google Maps Maps (Maps SDK for Android, Maps SDK for iOS, Maps JavaScript API, Maps Static API, Street View API, Maps Embed API) Routes (Maps JavaScript API, Directions API, Distance Matrix API, Roads API) Places (Places API, Places Library, Maps JavaScript API, Geocoding API, Geolocation API, Time Zone API, Elevation API) If you are not sure which Google Maps API is better to use in your case, you can have a peek at API Picker. It is made to help you choose by showing the functions each Google Maps API will bring to you. Travelopro is a car rental API that deals with car search and car booking. Once the API integration into your site is complete, you get access to a full inventory of car rental offers. You can search the available cars by price, number of passengers and level of comfort. Travelopro supports several languages and has a car fleet from more than 190 countries. They also offer Travel APIs, Flight APIs, Hotel APIs, and Cruise APIs. Travelopro Windy API gives access to a vast collection of webcams around the world. It is available in two plans – Free and Professional. Free plan allows you to either link your site to windy.com or embed a player. Professional plan allows you to get unlimited API access without any in-player ads or size restrictions. The webcams can be filtered by country, category, nearby location and other features. Windy API Expedia travel API is a hotel booking API with a huge number of functions. It has got standard features, such as hotel booking and hotel search, as well as some extras: Expedia Hold & Resume – this feature lets you pause the hotel booking and get back to it with price staying unchanged Property Collect Deposits – lets the client leave a deposit and pay the rest of the sum at the hotel Cross-Sell Recommendations – interaction between different types of APIs for more desirable experience Notifications – let you know if any changes occur User-Generated Content – gives you access to reviews and ratings To proceed with Expedia API integration you will have to become a partner and get approval. Tiqets API is dealing with tickets to museums, galleries, concerts and other places of interest. It provides full booking experience divided into three stages: Tiqets API Content Discovery – allowing you to find the place you want to visit Product Availability – checking if there are tickets available for the chosen date Booking Order – finalizing the booking by purchasing the tickets The ticket itself contains the information about the venue, cancellation policy, disability access, “Skip the Line” option and many other details. Numbeo API provides you with all kinds of information about cost of living, property prices and quality of life around the world. Numbeo gathers information about local prices (housing, utilities, food, transportation, education, etc.), salaries, healthcare availability, crime rates, pollution and many more. The API boasts vast collection of cities with cost of living and life quality indexes. The API is available by purchasing a subscription, but you might get it free you want to use it for academic and not commercial purposes. And a bonus discount of 40% if your company is not very big. Numbeo API RoadGoat Cities API shares travel related data about various destinations around the globe. It covers 232 countries and more than 4 million cities. Each destination features such details as: RoadGoat Cities API Photo“Known for” tags RoadGoat community info Budget, safety and COVID ratings Geodata Booking links The API is available for free or by purchasing the subscription. Weather API does what it is supposed to do – it gives you weather forecast. On top of that you get information about solar radiation, road risk information, historical weather, weather maps and national weather alerts. The API is available in different variations with flexible payment plans. Weather API
