Hotel Booking Engine for Saudi Travel Startup

Industry:

Travel and Leisure

Vertical:

Travel Startup, Travel Agency

Technology:

Java 11, Spring 5, MySQL, MongoDB, Hibernate 5, Angular 9, TypeScript, HTML5, SCSS, Webpack

Scope:

7300+ man-hours

Approach:

Custom Travel Software Development

Project Background

Our Client is an ambitious startup based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The company’s aim is to establish online distribution of traditional hotel, flight bookings and competitive booking deals to individual and corporate users via their own proprietary platform built around a unique marketing idea.

The Client aims to enter the travel market both locally in Saudi Arabia and potentially on a global scale.

Challenge

The Client approached GP Solutions with a well-defined and elaborate business concept. The main challenge consisted in finding the right technology to build a booking engine based on the custom auction approach developed by the company. In addition, the upcoming system needed to be easily scalable in order to incorporate larger amounts of individual, corporate customers and partner suppliers as the business grows in volume.

The end product had to incorporate critical functionality offered by the main competitors and also stand out among them thanks to the custom business approach put to reality using modern technologies.

Goal

The main goal set forth for the development team was to deliver a platform ‘from scratch’, fully in line with the requirements provided by the product owner on the Client’s side.

The end product was to be a system allowing end users to buy and resell travel services. The system implicated B2C, B2B and C2C sales cases. In particular:

For individual travellers the system was to provide options to buy and resell hotel and flight bookings;
For corporate clients the platform needed the options to buy and resell blocks of hotel rooms on auction.

Thus, the general concept of the project was defined as a fully-featured platform with capabilities to:

Search, compare and book hotel rooms and flights;
Buy resold hotel and flight reservations (i.e., booking deals);
Resell hotel and flight reservations as a booking deal;
Auction reservations as a corporate bedding deal.

Solution

Based on the business analysis performed in detail by GP Solutions the project scope was shaped as the following set of development phases:

Search & book functionality
Individual & corporate deal management
Integration of B2B supplier APIs
Online payment gateway integration
Customer-facing website (B2C)
The principal platform model is presented on the graph below:

hotel booking engine scheme

Phase #1: Search & book functionality

The project started with implementation of hotel and flight search&book functionality based on the custom set of search parameters and filters. The tech scope essentially involved Java programming and Angular framework of JavaScript.

The search flow divides the results in two sections: regular offers and special deals. The regular offers are pulled into the platform using API integrations with external B2B suppliers. The special (limited-time) deals were developed to be formed by the Client. These are resell bookings that are likely to have more favorable prices compared to the regular offers.

The prices of both types are compared and later the booking flow transfers the user to booking hotel rooms or flight seats.

Phase #2: Individual & corporate deal management

During this next development step the project team implemented custom functionality allowing corporate and individual users to get an aggregated view of all sales and customer-related data, view analytics, reports and perform tourist activities. It provides creation of detailed product descriptions and adding of high-resolution pictures, including pricing changes, discounts and inventory allocation.

Phase #3: Integration of B2B supplier APIs

This project step involved development of flight and hotel supplier integrations using XML/JSON APIs they provide. The integration developer assigned with the task implemented connections to Hotelbeds, GTA, Tourico and Mystifly suppliers. The project roadmap for the nearest future also includes further plans to integrate more hotel bedbanks and enrich the flight content and ancillary platform access for suppliers.

Phase #4: Online payment gateway integration.

The platform required connection to a reliable payment gateway in order to enable instant online payments for the booked services. PAYFORT online payment gateway was integrated for the purpose as one of the most widely used online payment solution in the target region. It also enforces strict user data protection guidelines.

Phase #5: Customer-facing website (B2C).

The goals set forth by the project owner were successfully met by the development team. GP Solutions created a user-friendly booking portal that conveys the key benefits of SUM Travel business concept and that is backed up by a reliable and productive back-end engine. This brand-new and truly innovative solution is effectively aligned with the internal business processes of SUM Travel and is promising to be a breakthrough on the travel market.

Results

This project stage involved development of a user-friendly customer-facing website that would clearly convey the key project idea to platform users. Our UI/UX specialists and front-end developers came up with a minimalistic, easy-to-navigate layout with convenient navigation, including flight ticket search box, dropdown calendar and more. The website also incorporates a text-based chatbot with search&book capabilities.

Our Clients Say

“Our company would like thank GP Solutions for being so cooperative in implementing software solutions for our company in the shortest possible period. Your team has manifested the ultimate operational excellence and highest professional and personal competence. We consider your team’s cohesion and unity spirit as the key stone of our project’s success.”

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Sven Schiller

Information Technology Director

“ We’re impressed with their willingness to always find a way to make things happen.It is a very honest relationship we have with our team at GP and they really do feel like an extension of our own company. This isn’t something you find every day.”

Josea Browne

Managing Director

“I can highly recommend the services of GP Solutions. During the past 1.5 years, our company has been working with GP Solutions on a new project of ours. The company offers high quality services. We can say that we have always been satisfied by their work.”

Dennis Behnsen

Vice President

“GP Solutions continues to produce high-quality outputs thanks to their dedication and commitment to delivering their projects on time. The team is highly adaptable, and internal stakeholders are particularly impressed with their vast industry experience.”

Benjamin Weller

Head of IT

“Their expertise in travel-oriented development and their team’s wide range of skills has been huge for us. Engage their people as soon as possible within your project timeline. They have a fantastic level of expertise on all development fronts that will help your project get moving quickly.”

Marc Blaser

Director Projects

“Due to their experience in travel IT we’ve selected GP Solutions to work on a custom project for TOURCOMPASS, which involved interaction with Amadeus. We found GP team to be professional, dependable and responsive. We are pleased to recommend GP Solutions GmbH as a reliable travel technology partner.”