Proxies are incredibly important in the development of a travel fare aggregation system. Come in now and discover the best proxies in the market that can help you gather high-quality travel fare data at a fast rate.
Are you looking forward to setting up a travel fare aggregation website or even an agency that has to gather travel fare data from different websites on the Internet? Then you have come to the right page as you will be learning about an important aspect of developing a travel fare aggregation system – proxies. Travel fare aggregation systems, in most cases, do not own the data they display on their website and do not even have the permission to do so. They make use of a technique known as web scraping to extract publicly available travel fare data on websites on the Internet.
Web scraping requires proxies and not just any type of proxies but proxies that can be used for accessing the target websites. These proxies will be discussed, and recommendations on the best proxies to use will be made.
What are Proxies for Travel Fare Aggregation?
Proxies are computers that serve as intermediaries between your computer and the websites you visit. When you send requests, they pass through these computers and reach the website as if the request is coming from the proxy server, and as such, your IP address is not discovered – the request will carry the proxy server’s IP address. In the real sense of the term, there are no proxies that are specially meant for travel fare aggregation.
This is because the process of gathering travel fare data requires you to gather data from many airlines, railways, and other travel agencies, and each website's anti-spam system is different. However, when a proxy server is able to access most of the travel agency websites and scrape the required data from them, such a proxy server can be termed a proxy for travel fare aggregation.
Why Do You Need Proxies for Travel Fare Aggregation?
Just in case you are not aware, travel fare aggregation websites and applications strive on proxies. Yes, proxies are behind the success of travel fare aggregation. This is because the whole model strives to scrape fare prices from airlines and other agencies’ websites. These websites that are the normal targets of travel fare aggregators have a strict and aggressive anti-spam system to detect automated traffic. They set a limit to the number of requests one can send from a given IP. If you try to surpass this limit, your access will be restricted.
Travel fare aggregators have to look out for a solution, and proxies provide that as they can get as many IPs as they need to remain under the radar and avoid detection and ban. Also, some travel fare prices, discounts, and promos can only be seen from certain locations. If you are not present in such locations, you won’t be able to access it. Since aggregators have support for many locations and they, need to put into consideration discrepancies in fare prices as a result of regional differences.
Websites use IP addresses to detect locations where traffic originates from and provides geo-targeted content. With proxies, aggregators can access geo-targeted fare prices.
Best Proxies for Travel Fare Aggregation
Travel websites are some of the most difficult websites to scrape. This is because they have been made a target for scraping and automated access for long that they have developed systems to detected and prevent them. Because of this, not all proxies in the market can be used for scraping travel websites for travel fare data. Residential proxies have proven to be the best in this regard. Some of the residential proxy providers with proxies that are compatible with many travel websites are discussed below.
Luminati
- IP Pool Size: Over 72 million
- Locations: All countries in the world
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 40GB
- Cost: Starts at $500 monthly for 40GB
Luminati is arguably one of the best residential proxy service providers. Its residential proxies are perfect for scraping travel websites. One of the most important features of Luminati, which makes it a perfect travel fare aggregation proxy provider is that it proxies are undetectable and compatible with most websites on the Internet.
With proxies from Luminati, you do not have to worry about IP rotation as Luminati takes care of that for you. It has high-rotating proxies that change IP Address after every request. Its location coverage is excellent too. Its minimum monetary requirement is not pocket friendly.
GeoSurf
- IP Pool Size: Over 2.5 million
- Locations: 130 countries
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 38GB
- Cost: Starts at $450 monthly for 38GB
Are you looking for premium proxies that you can use for scraping travel sites? Then residential proxies from GeoSurf can get the job done. GeoSurf has engineered their proxies to be undetectable, fast, reliable, and compatible with even the most strict websites on the Internet.
They have got a good IP rotation system and have got a pool of over 2 million IPs to support that. When it comes to location coverage, GeoSurf has proxies in over 130 countries around the world – they equally have support for city-specific proxies in about 1700 cities. Their minimum monetary requirement is also high.
Smartproxy
- IP Pool Size: Over 10 million
- Locations: 195 locations across the globe
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 5GB
- Cost: Starts at $75 monthly for 5GB
Smartproxy is another residential proxy provider with proxies you can use for scraping websites for your travel fare aggregation system. Smartproxyprides its proxies as proxies without limit, and they live up to that when it comes to the locations they support. Smartproxyhas proxies in about 195 countries in the world.
This means that you can get the ticket price as it appears to different users all over the world. They have a fairly big proxy pool with over 10 residential IPs in it. Unlike Luminati and GeoSurf, Smartproxy has an affordable minimum monetary requirement of $75.
Shifter
- IP Pool Size: Over 31 million
- Locations: 130 countries
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Cost: Starts at $125 monthly for 10 ports
Shifter has been around for sometimes now with a different name –Microleaves. Shifter backconnect residential proxies have been used for scraping many travel websites, and they have proven to be undetectable on these sites.
Shifter makes use of real broadband, digital cable, DSL residential IPs, and as such, will help you scrape the correct data the way it appears to regular users. They have a proxy pool with 31 residential IPs, which makes them one of the largest proxy network in the world. When it comes to pricing, they can be said to be cheaper than Luminati and GeoSurf.
Proxy-cheap
- IP Pool Size: over 6 million
- Locations: Worldwide location coverage
- Cost: $5 per GB monthly
The above providers are the best when it comes to scraping travel sites for fare aggregation. However, if you are looking for the best value for your money, then Proxy-cheap comes in. Unlike the ones above, Proxy-cheap does not even have any monetary requirement – and best of all, it proxies are very cheap and affordable.
Proxy-cheap has over 6 million residential IPs in over 127 countries. This makes country-level targeting possible. Just like Shifter, it does not have city-specific proxies. Aside from travel fare aggregation, you can use their proxies for a good number of use cases.
FAQs about Travel Fare Aggregation Proxies
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Are Proxies a Must for Travel Fare Aggregation?
Yes, for you to successfully gather fare prices, you need to make use of proxies. This is because many of the sites with the data you require have no API or their APIs are paid. Fortunately, since the data required is publicly available on their websites, you can scrape them using web scrapers. However, your web scrapers need proxies to work.
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Do Travel Websites Support the Use of Proxies?
No travel website support and will ever support the use of proxies. This is because they are deceptive in nature and tend to help it users circumvent restrictions put in place by travel websites for some business-related reasons. Many of the travel websites have systems in place to detect proxy through traffic and deny them access. However, some proxies are stealth enough and can’t be detected.
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Why are Datacenter Proxies not Used for Travel Fare Aggregation?
Datacenter proxies can be easily detected by travel websites. Even for providers that have proxies that are undetectable, they suffer from limited location support as we do not have data providers that support half the number of countries we have in the world. So even though they can be used, it is going to be a whole lot of work.
Conclusion
Travel fare aggregation websites are quite helpful as they help travelers plan their trip and help them save money. Proxies are the secret behind these websites since they depend on web scraping and web scraping depends on proxies. Not all proxies can be used for accessing travel sites as they are very strict in their fight against scraping. Only a few can be used, and some of these few proxies have been discussed above.
