Everyone loves to travel. We all need to leave our hobbit holes and see the world. This situation can be different for the frequent traveler. Traveling can be exhausting, robbing you of sleep and personal time. This is the reason why online platforms that point out the best and cheapest travel rates have become fundamental travel tools for the travel and hospitality industry.
As an illustration, Paul’s frequent flyer card now reads Silver. He surfs the internet when making travel plans and depends on websites like TripAdvisor for accommodation ideas.
He is also very reliant on Google Flights and Expedia for travel price comparison and Booking.com for hotel bookings. These internet platforms have significantly reduced Paul’s travel-related stress.
How travel agencies access vast amounts of travel data
Due to the rising need for at-the-finger-tips travel information, the travel industry has shifted from a managerial position of trade to a data-driven technical industry.
Travel price comparison sites have eliminated the need for customers to jump from one airline website to the other, often a very exhausting and time-consuming process.
Therefore, if Paul needs a cheap ticket on short notice, he can log in to the travel aggregator site of his choice. He’ll then access the routes and costs of all airlines flying to his destination on his travel dates. All he needs to do is compare the prices, decide, and purchase.
What is web scraping?
Web scraping is an automated method collecting massive amounts of online data via bits of code known as scrapers. Web scrapers will download all the data scraped from various websites then save it in databases or as readable computer files.
These bots can scrape information such as product descriptions and prices, images, videos, user reviews, and contact information to name just but a few items.
This process of collecting data has become the norm amongst businesses that are highly dependent on Big Data harvesting and analysis for business insights. While ethical web scraping is legal, businesses that compete rarely encourage it.
Hotels, online travel agencies, rental car businesses, and airlines appreciate the benefits of price comparison via data scraping. However, their websites have measures in place that prevent effective web scraping. To stay ahead of the game, they will block access to data or share the wrong information with competitors.
The benefits of data scraping for travel data
Real-time travel data for the consumer is, however, a critical need. Consequently, travel aggregator sites will use tools such as proxies for traveling to access this data. Some of the benefits of travel data scraping include
- Saves the time that would have been spent on manual copy and pasting of data
- Provides easy to access and structured data
- Cuts down on the cost of data scraping
- Provides accurate real-time data
How proxies for traveling overcome web scraping blockades
Proxies, also known as proxy servers, are intermediary servers that act as gateways between a web browser and the internet. They separate the end-users from the World Wide Web when browsing. When using a proxy, all internet traffic to and from your computer flows through it.
This process ensures your computer’s IP address is kept hidden. Any online user monitoring or tracking your web activity only views the IP address belonging to the proxy server.
A computer’s IP address is a unique internet-enabled device identifier that can reveal personal information about its users to the public. An IP address can highlight information such as your internet service provider or physical location.
Proxies for traveling veil the IP address of web scraping computers to overcome any scraping blockades. The activity of the proxies for traveling will mimic that of a real customer. The best proxy providers provide rotational pools of residential proxies to ensure high-quality scraping efficiency.
Residential proxies have valid IP addresses, meaning that any web administrator will not flag them when web scraping. The best residential proxies for scraping price data are regularly rotated at intervals to prevent detection.
With scrapers, one proxy may continually send a high volume of queries to one website. If that happens, web administrators will quickly flag it due to bot-like actions.
Here’s the good news:
When proxies for traveling are rotated, they can send massive requests at intervals just like humans do. Proxies for traveling are therefore meant to make you like a traveler rather than a rival.
This is the best way any travel aggregator can access accurate, real-time data for their website.
The final word
Travel aggregators scrape airline websites for crucial travel information and prices. They also analyze the data scraped and place it all in an organized and easy to access a website. Aggregator sites can help travelers identify the best price range from a comprehensive list of service providers. These websites are an oasis for the weary traveler.
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