RSS feeds

[morleymouse]

Okay well I've seen loads of people calling out for RSS feeds in all sectors, but they dont seem to be many (any?) in travel yet so thought id see if I can get some ideas from you lot about what you'd want, and more importantly where / how you'd use them?

I've seen sites built around RSS feeds but surely thsi can be done from a CSV as well?

So RSS feeds for travel - what do you want? in an ideal world of course

[Steved]

Savapoint have created some RSS feeds for 3 of their categories so far:
- Deal of the Day
- Top 10 products
- Latest products

They can be found at http://www.savapoint.com/savapoint/rssfeeds.php

So I guess the same question as morleymouse, are these any good for affiliates and if not what would be the ideal?

[Muller2]

ideally you want to develop a webservice. For instance your homepage - you have the 'Check Availability' box, why not allow affialites to query the webservice providing the same information as you do in an xml file and this can then be consumbed by the affilaites code.

Top 10 feeds, new offer feeds etc need to be focused. No point having 5 summer holidays in the top 10 holidays if the user (sorry custoemr) is searching for skiing holidays.

I have just started looking to develop my holiday site so drop me a PM and maybe we can have a further indepth discussion.

Thanks

Al

[morleymouse]

Yeah we've got a webservice

xml.alpharooms.com

You need a username and password to use it though, ill drop you a PM

RSS wise some people dont have the ability to use the webservice so im hoping to use RSS in a more simple way as there are a lot of free tools to help people use an RSS feed

[trevHCS]

Are you sure an RSS feed is the right way as they tend to be a bit limited assuming you keep it within the allowed RSS XML tags?

One thing I'd like to see from more providers is a combination of CSV for the basic data import, and a simple XML file for things like prices and room types available. For example you could have something whereby you pass
?hotel_id=7282&start_date=01-05-07&nights=7

...and it comes back with a basic XML file that can be easily parsed such as:

<details>
  <hotel_name>The XYZ Inn</hotel_name>
  <room>
    <room_type>Standard</room_type>
    <availability>1</availability>
    <room_price>38.00</room_price>
  </room>
<details>

Then the affiliate can pick out the data they want much more easily than with an RSS feed where it'd all have to go in the description. I got the idea for this from one of our other affiliate providers although it's a little easier for them as they only deal with the next 5 days usually.

Trev