API Chaos and What We Can Do About It - Stu Waldron, OpenTravel

API Chaos and What We Can Do About It - Stu Waldron, OpenTravel

I come from the travel industry hence will use examples I have experienced but the issue is industry wide. There are more than 500 airlines operating around the world, dozens of large hotel chains, car rental companies, cruise lines, rail operators and innumerable smaller ones. Then there is the long tail of tour operators, restaurants, golf courses, event spaces, concerts, plays, and much more. In the US alone in 2019 the spend on these companies in the context of travel amounted to 1.1 trillion. Only one third of that was booked thru commonly used booking channels like travel agencies and online portals. The vast majority of this spend had to be managed by the traveler even when using an online booking service. Lacking in travel is offerings that work at a trip or experience level. There are some examples of this but localized and limited in offerings. Why? API chaos.

[MCGolfbuddy]

API Chaos is one the major challenges that is driving the cost up for acquisition and distribution of travel content.