A Hotelbeds API integration lets your travel agency search, price and book hotel rooms from Hotelbeds' wholesale inventory directly on your own website, at net rates you can mark up. The process combines a commercial onboarding with Hotelbeds, a technical connection from your booking software, and a testing and review stage before live access is granted. This guide explains each part in plain terms so you know what to prepare and what to check.
What Hotelbeds offers a travel agency
Hotelbeds is a bedbank: a wholesaler that contracts hotel rooms in bulk and resells them to travel businesses rather than directly to the public. For an agency, that means access to a very large hotel inventory across many destinations through one contract and one connection, instead of negotiating with properties one by one.
Rates are typically supplied as net prices. Your agency adds a margin and sells the room to the traveller, or to a sub-agent if you run a B2B portal. Bedbanks often provide other products such as transfers and activities as well, but most agencies start with hotels because they are the core of most trips and packages.
Before you start a Hotelbeds API integration
The technical work moves quickly when the business groundwork is done first. Hotelbeds, like other wholesalers, will want to understand who you are and how you will sell its rates. Have the following ready.
- Your registered company details, travel agency licence and website address.
- A clear description of your sales model: public B2C website, private B2B agent portal, or both.
- The markets and currencies you plan to sell in.
- How you intend to pay for bookings, since commercial terms, deposits or credit arrangements are agreed with the supplier.
- Booking software that already supports Hotelbeds, or a developer with experience of hotel supplier APIs.
Static content and live availability are separate
One of the first things to understand about hotel APIs is that they split information into two kinds. Getting this right has a big effect on speed and cost.
| Type of data | Examples | How often it changes | How to handle it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Static content | Hotel names, addresses, descriptions, star ratings, images, facilities, room type names | Occasionally | Download in bulk, store in your own database and refresh on a schedule |
| Live availability and rates | Which rooms are available for given dates, board basis, price, cancellation policy | Constantly | Request in real time for each search and never rely on old prices |
Storing static content locally means your search results pages load faster and you only ask the supplier for what genuinely changes: price and availability. It also lets you improve content for your own audience, for example by highlighting distance from a landmark or adding destination guides around the hotels you sell.
The hotel booking flow step by step
Although the exact requests depend on the version of the API and your agreement, a hotel booking through a bedbank follows a familiar sequence.
- Availability search. The customer chooses a destination or hotel, dates, number of rooms and occupants. Your engine requests live availability and receives a list of hotels, room types, board options and rates.
- Rate check. Some rates must be re-confirmed before booking, because the price or conditions can change after the search. The engine checks the selected rate and shows the customer any update before payment.
- Guest details and payment. The customer enters the lead guest's name and contact details, accepts the cancellation policy and pays through your gateway, or the agent pays from their wallet.
- Booking confirmation. Your engine confirms the booking with Hotelbeds and receives a supplier reference, which is stored alongside your own booking number.
- Voucher. The customer receives a confirmation or voucher with the hotel details, dates, room, board basis, supplier reference and any important notes.
- Changes and cancellations. If the customer cancels, the engine applies the policy shown at booking, cancels with the supplier and records any charges.
Cancellation policies deserve extra care
Hotel rates can be refundable until a date, partly refundable, or non-refundable. The policy attached to each rate must be shown clearly to the customer before payment, stored with the booking and applied exactly when a cancellation is requested. Remember to account for time zones in cancellation deadlines, and consider setting your own internal deadline slightly earlier than the supplier's so your team has time to act.
Testing and approval before going live
You will normally receive test credentials first. The test environment lets your software make real-looking requests without creating genuine hotel reservations. Use it thoroughly, because suppliers commonly review an integration before issuing live credentials, checking that searches are sensible, bookings and cancellations work and the required information is shown to customers.
- Single and multiple rooms, with adults only and with children of different ages.
- Refundable and non-refundable rates, including a cancellation inside and outside the free period.
- A rate that changes at the re-check stage, and how the customer is told.
- Error cases such as a room selling out or a booking request timing out.
- Vouchers and emails that include every detail the supplier requires you to display.
Search performance and sensible usage
Hotel searches can return large volumes of data, especially for popular cities. Good integrations keep them efficient: they search by destination or a defined list of hotels rather than everything at once, they avoid repeated identical requests, and they filter and sort on your side using the stored static content. Wholesalers also pay attention to how many searches you make compared with how many bookings you complete, so automated or careless searching can become a commercial issue as well as a technical one. Your agreement will explain any expectations that apply to you.
Combining Hotelbeds with other hotel suppliers
Many agencies connect more than one bedbank, for example Hotelbeds alongside WebBeds or Agoda, to widen coverage and compare prices. That brings a new challenge: the same hotel will appear under different identifiers from each supplier. Hotel mapping links those records so customers see one hotel with the best available options, rather than three near-identical listings. Mapping is rarely perfect, so plan for a way to review and correct matches over time.
The same principle applies across product types. If you also sell flights, our guide to Amadeus API integration explains the equivalent process on the flight side, and the two connections can sit together in one booking platform to support flight-plus-hotel packages.
Pricing hotel rates on your website
Because bedbank rates are usually net, your booking software has to turn them into selling prices. Most agencies apply a percentage markup, sometimes with different values by destination, star rating, supplier or customer type. If you run an agent portal, you may also set separate markups for agent groups, leaving room for agents to add their own margin.
Watch the details that affect the final amount a guest pays. Some charges, such as local city or tourist taxes, may be payable directly at the hotel rather than included in your price, and these need to be shown clearly before booking so guests are not surprised at check-in. If you sell in several currencies, decide how exchange rates are applied and refreshed, and make sure the currency you charge the customer in is the one shown on the voucher and invoice.
Reconciliation after go-live
Once real bookings start, compare your own booking records with the supplier's statements regularly. Look for bookings that exist in one system but not the other, cancellations that were not recorded on both sides and price differences. Catching mismatches weekly is far easier than untangling them at the end of a busy season.
Commercial points to clarify
Before going live, make sure you understand the commercial side as clearly as the technical one. Ask how and when you pay for bookings, what happens if a payment is late, which markets and channels you may sell the rates in, and whether there are rules about displaying or packaging net rates. Confirm how supplier invoices and statements are provided so your finance team can reconcile them against your own records. If you are new to the industry, our guide on how to start an online travel agency covers the wider set of licences and contracts you will need.
Next steps
TravelBookingPanel's hotel booking software supports Hotelbeds, WebBeds and Agoda connections using contracts and credentials in your agency's own name. It is a white-label platform with full source code on a one-time licence, installed on your own domain and server, with no monthly fee and no booking commission; supplier, hosting and gateway fees remain separate. Review the plans on our pricing page or contact our team to plan your Hotelbeds go-live.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bedbank?
A bedbank is a hotel wholesaler that contracts rooms in bulk and resells them to travel businesses at net rates. Agencies connect to a bedbank to access a large hotel inventory without negotiating with each property individually.
Why should hotel static content be stored locally?
Descriptions, images and facilities change rarely, so downloading them in bulk and storing them in your own database makes searches faster and reduces unnecessary requests. Only live availability and prices need to be requested in real time.
Do I need a test environment before going live with Hotelbeds?
Yes. You normally receive test credentials first and use them to check searches, bookings, cancellations and error handling. Suppliers commonly review the integration before issuing live credentials.
Can I connect Hotelbeds and other hotel suppliers at the same time?
Yes. Many agencies combine several bedbanks to widen coverage. Hotel mapping is then used to merge the same property from different suppliers into a single listing on your website.
Who should hold the Hotelbeds account and API credentials?
Your agency should. Holding the account and credentials in your own company name protects your access to hotel content if you change developers or booking software in future.
