From Pain to Performance: Solving TravelTech Challenges

In the travel and hospitality industry, integrating with suppliers is a necessity—but it’s also a minefield of business and technical challenges. From delayed launches to inconsistent data and scalability headaches, poorly managed integrations don’t just frustrate IT teams—they undermine customer trust, revenue growth, and your ability to stay competitive.

Many of these issues stem from treating integrations as isolated technical problems when they’re really business-critical. The good news is that technology can solve these problems if applied with a clear, strategic focus. 

At ApexTech, we’ve spent over eight years helping businesses—ranging from OTAs and hospitality chains to travel fintech platforms—navigate these challenges by leveraging technology to solve real-world business problems. 

Let’s dive into the most common issues faced by different types of businesses and explore the solutions to them.

The Issue:
For OTAs, delays in integrating suppliers mean missed revenue opportunities, especially during peak travel seasons. At the same time, inaccuracies in pricing or availability can frustrate customers, leading to abandoned carts and loss of trust.

Tech Solution:
Middleware Platforms to Simplify Complexity: Use middleware to future-proof your platform. With pre-built connectors and reusable components, middleware can cut integration time for new suppliers by up to 50%. 

Middleware platforms like MuleSoft, Apigee, or Kong act as a bridge, standardizing diverse supplier APIs and protocols into a unified interface. This reduces the time and cost of integrating new suppliers. 

Data Transformation Tools for Consistency: Automate data validation to catch errors in real time, preventing bad data from reaching your customers. Tools like Talend or Fivetran help clean, harmonize, and standardize supplier data before it’s displayed to users, ensuring accuracy in pricing and availability.

If your team spends weeks wrangling supplier APIs and fixing broken integrations, it’s not a tech limitation—it’s a strategy failure. Streamline the process with the right tools.

The Issue:
GDS platforms like Amadeus or Sabre face immense pressure to handle high volumes of supplier connections and data requests. Failure to scale during peak periods can result in downtime, lost bookings, and damaged relationships with travel agencies.

Tech Solution:
Elastic Cloud Infrastructure for Scalability: Implement serverless architectures where possible. They reduce costs and improve performance by automatically allocating resources based on traffic. 

Cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure offer auto-scaling capabilities, allowing you to handle demand surges without overloading servers.

Load Testing for Resilience: Test for “worst-case” scenarios regularly—don’t wait until your system crashes during the holiday rush. Use tools like Apache JMeter or BlazeMeter to simulate high-traffic scenarios, identifying bottlenecks before they disrupt operations.

Scalability isn’t just a technical feature; it’s a business lifeline. If your platform can’t keep up during peak demand, you’re leaving revenue on the table.

The Issue:
Aggregators like Kayak or niche marketplaces must merge data from dozens of suppliers. Fragmented or inconsistent data can result in pricing discrepancies, slow search results, and poor customer experiences.

Tech Solution:
Data Orchestration for Real-Time Accuracy: Use data orchestration to reconcile differences in data formats and schemas across suppliers, ensuring your platform delivers a unified experience. 

More on data orchestration tools from Hevodata.

Tools like Airbyte, Stitch, or Apache NiFi automate the process of fetching, merging, and prioritizing supplier data, ensuring users see only accurate and relevant information.

Caching for Speed: Leverage smart caching to reduce latency for high-demand queries, such as hotel availability or last-minute flight searches. Implement caching solutions like Redis or Varnish to store frequently accessed data locally, speeding up responses and reducing API calls.

Customers won’t tolerate “price updated” or “room unavailable” errors. Consistent, reliable data is non-negotiable.

The Business Problem:
Corporate clients demand precision and policy adherence. Mistakes—whether it’s an out-of-policy booking or an error in expense reporting—can strain client relationships and increase costs.

The Issue:

Custom Dashboards with Integrated Policies: Focus on automation. Use platforms like SAP Concur or TravelPerk to align booking options with corporate travel policies automatically. Automated reconciliation between bookings, invoices, and policies reduces errors and manual overhead.

Analytics and Reporting Tools: Build dashboards that provide real-time visibility into compliance metrics for your clients.

Tools like Power BI or Tableau can analyze travel data to identify patterns, optimize supplier selection, and ensure cost efficiency.

If your corporate clients are double-checking bookings manually, it’s only a matter of time before they question the value you’re providing.

The Issue:
While OTAs help hospitality chains expand their reach, they also take a cut of revenue and reduce direct control over inventory and pricing. Over-reliance can erode brand identity and profitability.

Tech Solution:

Channel Management Tools: Prioritize direct bookings by offering incentives, like loyalty points or exclusive discounts, integrated seamlessly into your platform.

Platforms like SiteMinder or Cloudbeds help synchronize inventory and pricing across OTAs and direct channels, maintaining parity and reducing the risk of double bookings.

API Monitoring for Accuracy: Tools like Postman or Runscope can monitor API interactions to ensure consistent pricing and availability across platforms. Monitor OTA dependencies regularly. If over 70% of your bookings come from third-party channels, it’s time to invest more in your direct channel strategy.

OTAs are valuable partners, but they shouldn’t be your entire business strategy. Balance reach with control.

The Issue:
Dynamic pricing and real-time vehicle availability create challenges for car rental platforms, especially during high-demand periods. System outages or delays can drive customers to competitors.

Tech Solution:

AI-Driven Pricing Engines: Use dynamic pricing to capitalize on peak demand without alienating customers with sudden price spikes. 

Platforms like PROS or Yieldify use AI to adjust pricing dynamically based on demand, location, and inventory.

Scalable Infrastructure: Implement elastic compute services through cloud providers to ensure systems stay responsive under heavy loads. Monitor traffic patterns and pre-emptively allocate resources during expected surges, like long weekends or major events.

Customers expect speed and reliability. If your platform isn’t delivering, someone else’s will.

The Issue:
DMOs must integrate localized services like tours and events with global platforms. Without proper integrations, they risk losing visibility, control over pricing, and bookings.

Tech Solution:

Localized API Development: Focus on partnerships. Collaborate with global platforms to ensure your offerings are prominently displayed and easy to book.

Use frameworks like GraphQL or REST APIs to create integrations that reflect local nuances while maintaining compatibility with global systems.

Image courtesy of ZenrumHub.

Dynamic Inventory Tools: Platforms like FareHarbor or Rezdy help DMOs manage availability in real-time, avoiding overbookings and lost sales. Invest in APIs that allow real-time updates to pricing and availability, giving you more control over your inventory.

Local expertise is your edge—don’t lose it by relying solely on static, outdated integrations.

Integrating with travel suppliers isn’t just about connecting systems—it’s about solving real business problems like scaling efficiently, ensuring data accuracy, and meeting customer expectations. 

The right technologies, from middleware platforms to dynamic pricing engines, can transform these challenges into competitive advantages.

The travel industry won’t wait for you to fix broken systems or outdated strategies. Whether you’re an OTA, a DMO, or a hospitality chain, it’s time to take a hard look at your integration processes. 

Are you building a system that supports your growth—or one that holds you back?