WorldMate, the world’s largest mobile itinerary management and booking service, launched the WorldMate API this week. The e-mail parsing API extracts travel data (e.g. confirmation e-mails, key travel information, airport codes, etc.) and sends the information back to the developer’s platform. Providing such information opens WorldMate’s data to a new realm of applications. WorldMate has already seen adoption from developers outside the itinerary management and booking space. Early examples include expense reporting, flight status, and compliance apps. WorldMate CEO, Jean Tripier, commented: “We are overwhelmed with the immediate popularity of the API across a wide spectrum of developers.”
An application that shows you if your train will be late, and that in real-time! Even better, imagine that bundled with an API that gives you access to all that data. So happened in Germany with the application Zugmonitor (German for train monitor) and the corresponding Zugmonitor API.
Our API directory now includes 134 travel APIs. The newest is the TakeABreak API. The most popular, in terms of mashups, is the Kayak API. We list 12 Kayak mashups. Below you’ll find some more stats from the directory, including the entire list of travel APIs.
Even though Alaska Airlines was one of the first airlines to offer an iPhone application, allowing travelers to check-in and use their phone as mobile boarding pass, early efforts were essentially just “screen-scraped” from the companies website, providing a very poor user experience, not really delivering on the process of the mobile web. Since you’re a ProgrammableWeb reader, you can probably guess what the company needed. After all, mobile has fueled API growth.
How many times have you been stuck in traffic behind a car circling the block looking for parking? Have you ever been that car circling the block? Imagine how much time (and gas) could be saved if there was an easier way to find the perfect place to park. Santa Monica-based ParkingInMotion, a developer of parking information apps for mobile devices, is working on making the process simpler. ParkingInMotion’s mission is to improve the way drivers find, compare, and pay for parking. The ParkingInMotion APIs provide access to the basic data in the ParkingInMotion database, as well as the optional higher level Rate Calculator and ‘ParkMe’ recommender.
Today OnStar, a GM company focused on in-car communication and security, announced what it calls an API. Though not yet released, nor totally open and perhaps not even an API, the move is certainly part of “car as a platform.” Building apps for cars is a movement that hasn’t seen much progress since Ford’s announcement two years ago. Though there is still a lot of potential, especially with the car culture in much of the US, some have questioned whether safety will stifle in-car apps.
It’s funny that when I talk to people in the travel industry about mashups and APIs, most of them get glazed looks in their eyes. Throw in terms like location based services or geospatial awareness and I’ve lost them. What most of them don’t realize is that the majority of the travel apps that are starting to come out, both online and for mobile are mashups that are relying on location awareness and geospatial data. Many of them, like Pocketvillage are a consumer interface on top of a variety of APIs all normalized for a single homogenous user experience. That’s right, it’s essentially a metasearch tool that pulls in content from a variety of sources including Viator, GetYourGuide, TourCMS, Rezgo, AirBnB, and many others. What differentiates a metasearch like Pocketvillage from other metasearch applications however, is the fact that with location based services enabled, Pocketvillage can return content based on your current location. The issue right now however is that not all geo data is equal. Not all APIs provide geolocation information and some return it based on different criteria.
There is no doubt that there is a lot of money to be made in travel. Heck, travel (globally) accounts for over 12% of the World’s GDP. That is some serious coin. You have an incredible idea for a web application that is going to make travellers love you and make you rich at the same time. The question is… who should I connect with and why? Here is a quick run down on the pros and cons of connecting with the likely, and not so likely, hotel distribution partners.
Roomorama is not the only one in the person to person travel accomodations game. The company is in a space that’s been well established by other players: CouchSurfing, Vacation Rentals By Owner and, of course, AirBnB. While there’s an AirBNB API planned, the only room rental site that is currently public with its platform is the the Roomorama API.
Popular room rental service AirBNB does not yet have an official AirBNB API. But signs point to one’s existence, as well as an affiliate plan in place to pay developers for reservations booked through the API. If the company sticks with the plan as written now, developers will be able to make up to 10 million API calls per day before contacting AirBNB.
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