Travel & Hospitality Affiliate Terms

An OTA, or online travel agency, is a website that sells hotel, flight, tour, and car-rental inventory from many suppliers inside a single booking flow.

A GDS, or global distribution system, is a network that distributes live travel inventory and pricing from suppliers to agencies and OTAs.

Travel metasearch is a model where a site compares prices across OTAs and suppliers, then refers the traveller to a third party to complete the booking.

A bedbank is a hotel wholesaler that buys room inventory at net rates and redistributes it to OTAs, agencies, and tour operators to resell with a markup.

A channel manager is software that syncs a property rates and availability across every booking channel, such as OTAs, the GDS, and the direct site.

A PMS, or property management system, is the core software a hotel uses to manage reservations, room inventory, rates, check-in, and guest billing.

A DMC, or destination management company, is a local operator that arranges ground services such as tours, transfers, and events for inbound travellers.

A tour operator is a company that bundles flights, hotels, transfers, and activities into a packaged trip and sells it to travellers directly or through agents.

A host agency is a larger travel agency that lets independent agents book under its accreditation and supplier contracts in exchange for a commission split.

A white-label booking engine is booking software a brand runs under its own name, letting travellers search and book inventory directly on the brand site.

A travel affiliate program is a partnership program where a travel brand pays affiliates and creators a commission for the bookings they drive to its site.

A travel affiliate network is a platform that connects travel brands with publishers and creators, aggregating many programs and handling tracking and payouts.

Booking-confirmation attribution is a model that credits an affiliate when a referred booking is confirmed, rather than at the moment of the click.

Completed-stay commission is affiliate commission paid only after a referred traveller actually checks out, rather than when the booking is first made.

Post-stay attribution is the practice of finalising affiliate credit after a stay is completed, once cancellations, no-shows, and refunds are resolved.

Cancellation clawback is the reversal of affiliate commission when a confirmed travel booking is later cancelled, refunded, or results in a no-show.

Net rate and markup is a pricing model where a supplier sells inventory at a confidential net rate and the seller adds a markup to set the retail price.

A commission override is an extra share a senior partner or network earns on the bookings produced by the sub-partners or agents beneath them.

Look-to-book ratio is the number of searches or shopping sessions divided by the bookings completed, measuring how efficiently travel traffic converts.

A travel deep link is an affiliate link that sends a traveller to a specific property, route, or search result page, rather than to a generic homepage.

RevPAR, or revenue per available room, is a hotel metric calculated as room revenue divided by the number of available rooms over a period.

ADR, or average daily rate, is a hotel metric equal to room revenue divided by the number of rooms sold, showing the average price of a booked room.

Ancillary revenue is income a travel supplier earns from add-ons beyond the core fare or room, such as baggage, seats, insurance, transfers, and upgrades.

Dynamic packaging is the real-time bundling of flights, hotels, and extras into one custom trip that is priced as a package at the moment of booking.

The booking window, or lead time, is the gap between when a traveller books and when they travel, a key driver of pricing and attribution length.

The merchant model is a travel-distribution model where the seller collects payment from the traveller, pays the supplier a net rate, and keeps the markup.

The agency model is a travel-distribution model where the supplier collects payment and pays the seller a commission, so the seller never holds traveller funds.

TAAP, or travel agent affiliate program, is a model where agents and partners earn commission for booking a supplier inventory through a dedicated portal.

An IATA number is a unique accreditation code that identifies a travel agency to airlines and suppliers, letting it book inventory and earn commission.

Coupon attribution is crediting an affiliate when a traveller uses their promo code at checkout, which can reward last-touch coupon sites for existing demand.

Travel commission models define how affiliates earn from travel bookings, including per-booking CPA, revenue share on net rates, and post-stay commission structures.

Occupancy rate is the share of available rooms sold over a period, calculated as rooms sold divided by rooms available, expressed as a percentage.

GOPPAR is gross operating profit divided by available rooms over a period, a profit-based hotel metric rather than a revenue-based one.

TRevPAR is total hotel revenue divided by available rooms over a period, capturing rooms plus food, beverage, and ancillary income.

Overbooking is deliberately accepting more reservations than available capacity to offset expected no-shows and cancellations.

RevPAR vs ADR is the comparison of two hotel metrics: RevPAR factors in occupancy while ADR measures only average room rate.

Hotel revenue management is the discipline of selling the right room to the right guest at the right price, time, and channel to maximise revenue.

Yield management is a pricing-and-inventory tactic that varies rates by demand to maximise yield per available unit, such as a hotel room.

Dynamic pricing in travel is pricing that adjusts rates in real time based on demand, competitor rates, and available inventory.

A direct booking is a reservation made directly with the travel brand rather than through an OTA intermediary, avoiding OTA commission.

OTA commission is the percentage an online travel agency charges a hotel or operator for each booking it brings, typically 15 to 25 percent.

A central reservation system is the hotel system that stores and distributes rates and availability across all booking channels.

New Distribution Capability is an IATA XML data standard that lets airlines distribute rich, personalised offers directly to agencies and OTAs.

Rate shopping is the practice of monitoring competitor and channel rates to inform a hotel's own pricing decisions.

Rate parity is a pricing policy where a hotel publishes the same room rate across all channels, including OTAs and its own direct site.

Direct booking vs OTA is the trade-off between selling rooms through a brand's own channels versus paying an OTA commission for distribution.

Travel influencer marketing is marketing where travel brands partner with content creators to drive bookings, tracked as a performance channel.

A travel referral program is a program that rewards existing customers or partners for referring new travellers who book, tracked via referral links or codes.

A destination marketing organization is a body, such as a tourism board or visitors bureau, that promotes a destination to travellers and the trade.

Co-op marketing is cooperative marketing where two or more parties co-fund campaigns and share the costs and the results.

Disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries from the booking chain so a travel brand sells directly to travellers.