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Maybe what you describe happens with automated/integrated tools, but I doubt it. The "manual" way to interact with booking.com from a hotel is simply to create

by jaclaz 3y ago

Maybe what you describe happens with automated/integrated tools, but I doubt it. The "manual" way to interact with booking.com from a hotel is simply to create on booking.com a list of available rooms while on the hotel side those rooms are pre-booked to booking.com (or if you prefer removed from the local list). At any time you (the hotel) can grow or reduce the list. As soon as booking.com gets a reservation it confirms it (to the customer), removes that room from the available rooms list and notifies the hotel of the reservation. The hotel can then decide to leave the list "as is" or add to it one or more rooms.

PurpleRamen 3y ago
> Maybe what you describe happens with automated/integrated tools, but I doubt it. The claim is not wrong, for flights. There are big systems (Amadeus, Sabre, mostly) who manage flight-reservations for big airlines. But it's a bit expensive, and airlines usually also offer their own reservation-systems now. There are also lowcost airlines and charter flights which are normally not available through them. But probably 90% of commercial flights in the western world happen through those reservation-systems. And Hotels have a similar situation. You can theoretically book hotels, and even trips with train, ships, buses or cars through the centralized systems, but usually only the big companies are available through the reservation-systems. This has mostly historical reasons, but also because it's expensive, and is a bit complicated. This is why alternatives like booking.com emerged, who are cheaper, and could adapt faster to the changing market. Amadeus & Sabre are annoyingly old and "heavy" in how they operate. Though, this all is changing slowly. The travel-industry is trying to move to new APIs for handling modern demands of travelers. And The old gangsters have started to branch out to web-stack, with JSON and restful APIs, offer free documentation on Github and youtube, and even have discord now.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  >The claim is not wrong, for flights. Sure, but we are talking of hotel rooms and booking.com, not of flights. And surely large hotel chains (national and international) have their own systems and interfaces to whatever booking system, but booking.com is AFAIK mainly about small, independent hotels, at the most these latter ones have softwares that integrate booking.com reservations into their internal reservation tableau, but (again AFAIK) they also work with the same mechanisms I described for manual interaction, there is a pool of pre-allocated rooms on which booking.com can make reservations.
carlosjobim 3y ago
> Maybe what you describe happens with automated/integrated tools, but I doubt it. Why are you doubting the truth, when you can easily verify? Even most small hotels have connected reservation systems. Booking will simply ping the system for available rooms, put in a reservation if the client makes a reservation, and now there's one room less available for that date. Nobody that is sane will pre-book any of their rooms to booking.com, that is a thing of the past.

by jaclaz 3y ago

PurpleRamen 3y ago

> Maybe what you describe happens with automated/integrated tools, but I doubt it. The claim is not wrong, for flights. There are big systems (Amadeus, Sabre, mostly) who manage flight-reservations for big airlines. But it's a bit expensive, and airlines usually also offer their own reservation-systems now. There are also lowcost airlines and charter flights which are normally not available through them. But probably 90% of commercial flights in the western world happen through those reservation-systems. And Hotels have a similar situation. You can theoretically book hotels, and even trips with train, ships, buses or cars through the centralized systems, but usually only the big companies are available through the reservation-systems. This has mostly historical reasons, but also because it's expensive, and is a bit complicated. This is why alternatives like booking.com emerged, who are cheaper, and could adapt faster to the changing market. Amadeus & Sabre are annoyingly old and "heavy" in how they operate. Though, this all is changing slowly. The travel-industry is trying to move to new APIs for handling modern demands of travelers. And The old gangsters have started to branch out to web-stack, with JSON and restful APIs, offer free documentation on Github and youtube, and even have discord now.

jaclaz 3y ago
>The claim is not wrong, for flights. Sure, but we are talking of hotel rooms and booking.com, not of flights. And surely large hotel chains (national and international) have their own systems and interfaces to whatever booking system, but booking.com is AFAIK mainly about small, independent hotels, at the most these latter ones have softwares that integrate booking.com reservations into their internal reservation tableau, but (again AFAIK) they also work with the same mechanisms I described for manual interaction, there is a pool of pre-allocated rooms on which booking.com can make reservations.

carlosjobim 3y ago

> Maybe what you describe happens with automated/integrated tools, but I doubt it. Why are you doubting the truth, when you can easily verify? Even most small hotels have connected reservation systems. Booking will simply ping the system for available rooms, put in a reservation if the client makes a reservation, and now there's one room less available for that date. Nobody that is sane will pre-book any of their rooms to booking.com, that is a thing of the past.