I wanted to know the technical details of how an online air ticketing/ hotel booking site works (expedi.com or hotels.com or orbitz.com, etc.)? The specific question is how online site brings the result when someone make search for ticket booking? Does online site has access to airlines and hotel's database? So that whenever someone make search online then that site connects to all participating airlines or hotels database and query them and after that do mining on those data and show it to end user? And when user purchases any ticket then how airlines or hotels database gets updated?
unfundedPeople succeed in answering success's questions 0% of the time (0 success in 4 attempts).
Answers by: Serg.Potap | Fear of Fish | JSO1 | Adam Thorsen
Most online air ticketing/hotel booking sites utilizing one or more of the three suppliers mentioned below to power their site. Some do it a bit differently - like kayak.com
You'll notice when using some of the larger travel sites that they don't show information from certain airlines (like Southwest Airlines for example). At last check, Southwest did not participate with these travel information suppliers.
The information flow is definitely bi-directional so when a user books a flight on a travel site, the information flows back to the airline so as to reserve the seat or room.
Here are three leading suppliers of travel-related information that can be integrated in a travel site.
Worldspan.com
Product/Service: E-Pricing
Utilizes XML feeds of information
http://www.worldspan.com/home.asp?fPageID=491
Sabre Holdings
(Owns Travelocity and Site 59. among others)
Division: Sabre Travel Network
Product/Service: Online Agency
http://www.sabretravelnetwork.com/products/travel_agencies/agency_type/online.html
Galileo
http://www.galileo.com
Hope this helps. I think a conversation with Adam's cousin would also prove invaluable!