Stay Connected and Keep Current

Introducing the Guide

Like you, we use a lot of APIs as we develop our software. Once we learn about a new set of APIs, test against them, integrate with them, and deploy our working application, all feels right in the world. What happens when APIs change? Well, we need to start the process again: learn, test, integrate, and deploy.

We have found by experience that understanding an API change is easier when a good migration guide exists. Migration guides are a specific type of technical documentation to assist developers in changing their source code when adapting to an API upgrade.

The lodging team is pleased to announce that the Content Services for Lodging Migration Guide is now available.

Using the Guide

Reading a good API reference tells a developer how to set up a request to an API and what to expect back in response. That type of information was published with the release of the Content Services for Lodging APIs.

After carefully watching, listening, and learning from our customers approaching the new lodging APIs for their system architecture, we knew we needed to provide a guide to help with the migration from our legacy Hotel service. A new migration guide is now available for you to use.

When you look at the newly release migration guide you should see information clearly telling you why the change has occurred, and how to easily reason about the new design. Furthermore, you should see what the specific mappings of APIs and data models are.

Seeing Capabilities

Looking at the migration guide one will notice some telling differences between the legacy hotel services and the new lodging APIs.

Aggregators

Inventory across all sources have been combined with what the GDS provides to create a new data structure. As you look through the API responses notice the formal ways all the dynamic data has been flattened and mapped together. Individual property prices can be easily compared to one another.

Greater Use of RESTful Services

REST is a well-known architectural pattern that may be familiar to your development team. If so, consider using the RESTful lodging APIs because they are feature-complete compared to the SOAP editions. If you do switch to using RESTful you will encounter theCreatePNR API to book properties.

Granular and Orchestrated APIs

Decide if using granular or orchestrated versions of the lodging APIs is best for your application’s workflow. If your user experience benefits from richer data provided by orchestration – use those APIs. If you have a need for concise, granular APIs, they are ready for integration too. Some teams will choose to mix-and-match.

Unique Identifiers

Several ways of referring to the collection of data structures across the portfolio of APIs exists. Look for these in API responses: Hotel Code, Rate Key, and Booking Key. They all play an important role at various points of your application workflow.

Next Steps

Leverage the migration guide as a tool to more quickly learn how to adapt your code to the new lodging APIs introduced in June. Let it inform you on techniques for mapping from the legacy to the modern.

Discover more about the APIs referring to our deep-dive series:

• Content Services for Lodging Deep Dive Part 1: Getting Availability
• Content Services for Lodging Deep Dive Part 2: Getting Details
• Content Services for Lodging Deep Dive Part 3: Checking Prices

Anyone needing an introduction to the new lodging APIs will benefit from this set of overview articles:

• Looking at Lodging APIs Part 1: Why We Built Them and How You Might See Them
• Looking at Lodging APIs Part 2: What You Can Do with Them and Looking Forward