Fluctuating room rates, changing availabilities, and endless promotions have transformed traveling — and if you’re not keeping up, you’re missing out on the best deals. Whether you’re an avid traveler or running your travel agency, staying on top of rapidly evolving information can make all the difference. 

 

If you’re wondering how you’d even begin to analyze all this information, hotel scraping is the answer. But it’s not all that easy. Hotel proxies can come in handy with hurdles such as geo-restriction and possible bans looming above your head. Here’s everything you need to know about these nifty tools. 

What are Hotel Scraping Proxies?

Like practically all other web scraping proxies, these proxies mask your IP address while you carry out your scraping activities. When you scrape hotel websites, proxies rotate your IPs, making it seem like your scraping data requests are incoming from multiple locations. This is helpful since it allows you to collect data efficiently and effectively without fearing being flagged for bot activity. 

Why Scrape Hotel Websites?

If you’ve been a stakeholder in the traveling industry — or otherwise, for long enough, you probably already know how important this is. Here’s a quick look at some of the most common uses: 

Use Cases for Hotel Scraping

Price Comparison

Scraping hotel data means always landing the best deals without breaking a sweat. Collecting hotel data from all over the internet allows you to compare prices, which is particularly useful for travel agencies and consumers alike. 

Market Research

Staying ahead of the competition means being aware of their every move. Scraping allows you to conduct in-depth market research, which is useful when making pricing plans and adapting to the industry. 

Data Aggregation

If there’s one thing travel agencies do, it’s make life easier when pulling data from multiple sources. No more switching between multiple tabs—everything’s in one place, neatly displayed to help you make your call. 

Sentiment Analysis

Customer reviews and feedback are invaluable. They give insights into how your guests genuinely feel, allowing you to improve your services or plan your trip accordingly. 

Why Automation is Necessary

With such high volumes of data and countless hotel websites, it’s impossible to scrape manually. The entire process would be cumbersome and flat-out tiring. By automating the entire process, you can gather large volumes of data accurately and efficiently in a fraction of the time.

Challenges in Scraping Hotel Websites

While scraping is incredibly beneficial, that’s not to say that there aren’t a couple of challenges you’re likely to run into. Here’s what you’re in store for: 

CAPTCHA and IP Blocking

Several hotel booking websites now employ CAPTCHA and IP blocks in an effort to prevent scraping activities. 

Geo-Restrictions

Based on your location, you’re likely to get different rates and room availability times. However, obtaining the necessary data can be complex with geo-restrictions in place. 

Frequent Data Changes

Regarding room availabilities and hourly room charges, fluctuation is a given, making real-time monitoring crucial. 

Login Requirements

In efforts to limit data scraping, hotel websites now also require authentication and login requirements, which may further complicate the process. 

Why Use Proxies for Hotel Scraping?

With so many challenges in place, there’s only one solution: proxies. Here’s why. 

Avoiding IP Bans

Proxies rotate IP addresses, making you practically anonymous, regardless of the requests you send from a single IP address. 

Accessing Geo-Specific Data

By changing your IP address to your desired location, proxies enable you to access geo-restricted data easily. 

Increased Anonymity

With your IP address hidden, your identity is masked, therefore reducing the risk of getting banned. 

Scaling Scraping Efforts

Proxies allow users to scale their scraping activities while staying under the radar of hotel websites. 

Types of Proxies for Hotel Scraping

Residential Proxies

Residential proxies are perhaps the most reliable of all proxy types you’ll come across. By using real IP addresses provided by internet service providers, you’re a lot less likely to be detected and banned. 

Datacenter Proxies

Datacenter proxies are fast and cost-effective. The only downside is that they are easier to detect than others. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not great for less sensitive data. 

IPv4 vs. IPv6 Proxies

IPv4 and IPv6 proxies for hotel data are comparatively more advanced than their counterparts. The only difference between the two lies in the pool size of IP addresses—IPv4 proxies have limited IP addresses compared to IPv6. While IPv4 has been considered the global standard, IPv6 proxies are slowly taking over. 

Setting Up Proxies for Hotel Scraping

Here’s how you can set up proxies for your scraping activities. 

1. Choose a Proxy Provider

When choosing a proxy provider, you must consider IP pools, global coverage, reliability, and speed. 

2. Configure Proxies in Scraping Tool

Before using proxies, you need to configure them by specifying your proxy address and port in the settings of your preferred scraping tool. 

3. Implement IP Rotation

Proxies rotate your IP addresses, which helps prevent detection by hotel websites. 

4. Handle CAPTCHAs

Hotel websites employ CAPTCHAs to hinder scraping activities. You can bypass this by incorporating CAPTCHA-solving services for smooth hotel data extraction.

5. Manage Login Credentials

Similarly, you can constantly authenticate yourself using cookies or managing your session time. 

Legal and Ethical Considerations

When scraping, it’s crucial to maintain a responsible attitude. Here’s how: 

Respecting Hotel Terms of Service

When you plan to scrape, it’s essential to review the terms and regulations of hotel websites to avoid legal consequences. 

Data Privacy Laws

In light of the GDPR law, it’s important to only focus on scraping publicly available data to avoid getting flagged. 

Responsible Scraping

Sending too many requests in a given time can lead to bans; instead, ensure you only send limited requests to respect the terms of service. 

Conclusion

When comparing prices and carrying out market research, hotel scraping is an absolute game-changer — and with proxies in place, the process couldn’t be easier! If you’re looking for ways to simplify your scraping activities, V6Proxies has a reliable range of proxies to choose from.