Sanjay Ghare, Founder & CEO, Vervotech (A Constellation Inc. company), Investor in Travel startups.
Do you remember the last time you took a vacation or a leisurely trip? You probably first checked flights on Google Flights to check airfare, then hopped on to some hotel booking platform to book your stay and perhaps looked up some travel websites to explore some local experiences or guided tours.
On the front end, the process looked smooth. On the back end, however, multiple systems were talking, exchanging data and confirming availability. That invisible coordination was made possible by APIs.
For decades, the race in travel technology was about who could list more hotels or flights. But today, quantity doesn’t guarantee a win in the market. The real differentiator is how well travel platforms collaborate to work with each other, thus making interoperability, facilitated by APIs, the new winning strategy.
But Why APIs?
The question to that answer is simple: APIs are like translators that allow two separate systems to speak the same language.
Picture yourself travelling to Bali for a week-long vacation. You’d need a flight, a sea-facing beach villa and probably a scooter to go around with your partner.
Without APIs, you’d have to book everything separately on different platforms, feed your details three times and deal with three email confirmations. But with APIs, a single platform can stitch together all these facilities, allowing you one smooth checkout. This is not just about saving time for travelers; it is about building loyalty. The platform that gives you a connected experience is the one you will return to for your next trip.
Travelers’ Expectations Have Changed
Today, travelers expect a “one window” journey. They no longer want to jump between 10 apps to put together a trip. They expect platforms to bring flights, stays, insurance, transfers and activities under one roof.
Think of how Amazon changed the whole shopping experience. You no longer go to different websites for shoes, books and electronics. You expect everything in one place. Travel is going through the same shift. And the only way to deliver that is through API-led interoperability. If you are a travel business still operating in silos, you are making your customers do the heavy lifting. That is not sustainable.
How Interoperability Creates Opportunities
Let’s assume you run a midsized travel agency in Southeast Asia. You already sell flight tickets. But if you plug hotel booking APIs into your platform, you instantly expand your offerings. Throw in activity APIs, and now you can sell curated local tours. Add insurance APIs, and you give peace of mind at checkout.
The secret here is speed. You do not have to build every service yourself. You can simply plug in, partner and expand. This is also how smaller players can compete with giants. A small/early-stage OTA with strong regional knowledge can become a full-service provider by building an interoperable ecosystem. Without APIs, that agency is stuck selling one or two products and losing customers to bigger platforms.
Avoiding The ‘Walled Garden’ Trap
Some companies still believe they should build everything in-house. They create a closed ecosystem, hoping to lock in the traveler. That approach may have worked a decade ago but not today.
Now, travelers like to compare and switch at their own pace. If your platform doesn’t play well with other platforms, you can lose travelers at the first touchpoint. For example, if your hotel booking engine doesn’t integrate well with reliable payment gateways, you can lose customers who prefer to pay via UPI in India or Alipay in China. Openness is not an option; it is a technique to thrive and stay afloat.
This is not only about growth or customer experience but also about reducing manual work and errors.
The Rise Of Travel Ecosystems
The travel industry now favors ecosystems rather than stand-alone platforms. Look at super apps in Asia like Grab or Gojek. They initially started off as ride-hailing apps but are now offering flights, hotels and experiences. Why? Because APIs allow them to connect to these services without building them from scratch.
For travelers, it feels like magic. They open one app to order food, book a cab and book a flight. For travel businesses, it means tapping into multiple revenue streams while keeping the travelers engaged longer. If you are not investing in an interoperable model for your travel business, you risk becoming irrelevant.
The Risks Of Ignoring Interoperability
Let’s be honest: Ignoring interoperability in today’s travel industry is like shooting yourself in the foot. Companies that fail to connect their systems with others risk losing customers, money and growth opportunities all at once. Start with customers: Travelers want a smooth, all-in-one journey. If they book a flight on your platform but have to jump to a competitor’s site to find a hotel, you have not just lost a sale; you have lost the chance to upsell, retain and build loyalty.
Then there is the cost of inefficiency. Without APIs to handle data exchange, product teams spend countless hours on manual tasks like reconciling bookings, checking availability and fixing mismatches. That workload eats into margins, increases the chances of human error and ties up resources that could be focused on growth.
Finally, there is the scalability problem. Every new service you want to add requires heavy development work because your system is not designed to plug and play. Meanwhile, your competitors who embrace APIs expand into new offerings 10 times faster, capturing the market while you are still stuck with your core services.
Travel Is Not Just Digital; It Is Interoperable
APIs are not back-end technicalities. They are the lifeline that connects experiences, reduces friction and creates new business opportunities.
Travelers today are impatient. They expect options, flexibility and smooth journeys. The only way to deliver that on a scale is to build platforms that talk to each other.
If your travel business still treats interoperability as optional, you are already behind. The winners in the next decade will not be those who have the biggest inventory but those who connect the dots better than anyone else.
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