For travel agents and tour operators, a booking engine, sometimes called an internet booking engine or IBE, turns a brochure website into one that takes bookings. It connects to suppliers such as GDSs, airline NDC connections, bed banks, hotels and tour operators, prices the results with your mark-up rules and takes payment, then passes the booking to the mid office.

Different kinds

• B2C engines are used by consumers on your website.

• B2B engines are used by trade partners, such as agents booking with a tour operator.

• A hotel’s own booking engine usually sells only that property’s rooms, which is different from a travel company’s multi-supplier engine.

The rules still apply

The law follows what the engine does. If it combines travel services into a package, the business is the organiser under the Package Travel Regulations. For package bookings, the Regulations also make a business liable for booking errors caused by technical defects in its booking system that it is responsible for, unless the traveller caused the error or it was due to unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances. Consumer law also requires headline prices to include all mandatory charges, including local taxes and resort fees.