Overview

Introduction

The Hotels Indicative Prices API returns a list of pre-computed estimated prices for different hotel categories in a given location for a given time period.

The API takes a location for a given period of time and returns a list of quotes with indicative pricing information.

The API is meant to be used to provide accurate hotel indicative pricing information to enrich SEO pages or any other product that does not require highly accurate pricing data.

How we use it at Skyscanner

The Hotels Indicative Prices API currently powers our SEO inspirational content that gives travellers an overview of hotel prices by location or date. The prices shown are cached and computed based on aggregation of real quotes, therefore, they may differ from live prices.

In Skyscanner, we use indicative prices to cover different use cases, such as:

• Providing travellers with the cheapest, average, and median hotel indicative prices for a given city or district, filtered by number of stars, hotel chains, and accommodation types, on a given date range:
  • for any day within a range
  • for whole months across the year
  • on a per-week basis
• Showing indicative prices for hotels near points of interest, such as airports, to help travellers plan their trips.
• Showing indicative prices for specific hotels, including the cheapest and highest-rated.

These data points are important for giving a realistic idea of the seasonality of hotel prices in a given location and helping travellers make informed decisions about their travel plans before checking actual live prices on specific locations.

What can you build with this API?

Indicative prices help you inspire and guide travellers early in their journey—before you fetch live, bookable rates. Here are example experiences you can build on top of this API.

Explore by star rating (next week in London)

Show travellers what prices to expect across 3-, 4- and 5-star properties for the upcoming week, helping them set a budget and pick a comfort level. Example: London Hotels

Seasonal “fast facts” and trends

Surface quick insights like the cheapest months to visit, typical price ranges, or when prices peak—ideal for SEO pages and destination guides. Example: London Hotels

Brand and chain insights

Help loyalty-minded users see indicative prices for their preferred brands and hotel groups. Example: DoubleTree Hotels in London

Beyond hotels: stay types that fit every trip

Travellers compare a variety of accommodation types—apartments, holiday rentals, guesthouses, hostels, unique stays, resorts and more. Use indicative prices to highlight options by stay type, budget and style.

Example: Hostels in London

More ideas

• Calendar view with indicative prices for each day in the upcoming month.
• A seasonal map showing indicative prices for each of the next 12 months.
• Average, median and cheapest indicative prices for hotels near an airport.

Endpoints

This API has 1 endpoint - /search.

/search

POST https://partners.api.skyscanner.net/apiservices/v1/hotels/indicative/search

The /search endpoint takes a search query containing a location and date range. It then returns a list of indicative hotel prices for the given query.

Concepts

Indicative prices

An indicative price is a daily quote price for a hotel in a given location and date range. These prices are not retrieved in real time (as opposed to live prices) and are instead cached values. Indicative prices should be used as estimates of hotel prices for a given destination and date range.

Though not as accurate as live prices, indicative prices are much faster to retrieve and useful when performing complex queries, like comparing the prices for an entire month or for multiple locations. If exact prices or bookable hotel rooms are needed, please use the live pricing API.

How indicative prices are generated

The API retrieves data from a file that is updated daily, reflecting the past seven days of hotel searches on Skyscanner. Each time a traveller searches for hotels on Skyscanner, all the quotes are recorded. Behind the scenes our systems aggregate the quotes on different time, geographical, and hotel characteristic dimensions which in turn will be available for querying via the API.

Request

/search

Required fields

Requests to the /search endpoint need to contain the following:

Field name	Description
market	Market for which the search is for. E.g.: UK
locale	Locale that the results are returned in. E.g.: en-GB
currency	Currency that the search results are returned in. E.g.: GBP
destinationEntityIds	A list of location identifiers (entity IDs) for which indicative price results will be retrieved
travelDate	The date(s) for which indicative price results will be retrieved, specified as either a fixed date or date range

Optional fields

Below are additional optional fields to modify the outcome of the request:

Field name	Description
dateTimeGroupingType	Determines the date-time granularity of the results (aggregated, daily, or monthly)
filter	Filters the results based on target hotels characteristics/information

Response /search

Fields

Field name	Description
prices	A map where each key represents a unique result item (combining a geo entity, filter, and date range), and values contain the corresponding hotel price data

Each price entry contains:

• prices: A list of aggregated price data categorised by type (cheapest, average, median)
• Each price aggregation includes the aggregation type and the actual price value in the specified currency