Hotel API Migration Guide, Switching Providers

Reasons to migrate hotel APIs

• Better inventory coverage in strategic regions.
• Lower commercial cost per booking.
• Deprecation of the current supplier API.
• Consolidation from multiple direct integrations to a unified aggregator.

Migration strategy: dual-run cutover

The safest migration pattern is dual-run: run the old and new supplier in parallel for a defined period (2-8 weeks). Route a small percentage of traffic to the new supplier, compare responses, and monitor booking success rates. Increase traffic gradually until 100% cuts over.

Never cutover on day one. Even well-tested migrations surface edge cases only in production traffic patterns.

Data mapping challenges

• Hotel IDs: old supplier IDs are different from new supplier IDs. Build a mapping table or use a canonical mapping service.
• Room type strings: "Double Room" in one supplier may be "Twin Room" or "Two Single Beds" in another. Room canonicalization matters.
• Rate structures: taxes, fees, and cancellation policies vary by supplier. Normalize to your application schema.
• Booking references: old and new references coexist during dual-run. Store both, present unified reference to end user.

Migrating to Vervotech: the easy path

Migrating to a unified API like Vervotech is often the reason for migration in the first place. Instead of building a per-supplier mapping table, Vervotech provides canonical hotel and room IDs at 99.998% mapping accuracy. Your old direct integration IDs map to Vervotech canonical IDs through a lookup service, and every new supplier added later inherits the same canonical mapping automatically.