How to choose a travel reservations system

Updated October 2026 · 7 min read · Top Dog Travel Systems

Start with how you sell, not the feature list

Every system demo looks good. Before you see any, write down how your business actually works, so you judge each system against that rather than against its own script.

• What you sell: packages, tailor-made trips, flights, hotels, extras, cruise.
• Where your stock comes from: suppliers, your own contracts, or both.
• How you sell: phone, website, travel agents, several brands.
• Where the time goes: the tasks your team repeats every day.

The essentials to check

• Supplier connections. Which of your suppliers are already integrated, and how long a new one takes.
• Your own contracts. Whether you can load hotel, flight and extras contracts and sell them in the same search as supplier stock.
• Quoting. What a quote looks like to your customer, and whether an accepted quote becomes a booking without rekeying.
• Automation. Payment chasers, documents, accounting entries and reports, all without someone pressing a button.
• Brands. Separate branding, language, currency, terms, and trade or direct pricing, if you run more than one.
• Your website. A bookable site, a booking panel on your existing site, or APIs, with every booking landing in the system.
• Pricing rules. Whether local taxes and fees can be included in headline prices. See UK pricing rules and local fees.

Questions to ask every supplier

1. Can you run the demo using a booking like ours?
2. What's included in the licence, what's optional, and what's charged separately?
3. How long from contract to go-live, and what does that time cover?
4. How will our data be brought across?
5. Where is the system hosted, and what support do we get out of hours?
6. Can you build what we need, and how do you keep that separate from what exists today?
7. Can we speak to a customer like us?

Red flags

• A demo that never leaves the sales script.
• Roadmap features presented as if they're live.
• No straight answer on the total cost.
• Go-live promised in a few weeks for a complex business.
• No customers willing to talk to you.

Where Top Dog fits

We're a good fit for tour operators and OTAs mixing supplier stock with their own contracts, multi-brand operators and consortia, and established businesses that have outgrown their current system. We're not the right choice for agencies selling only tour-operator packages, or for a single homeworker. More on who we're right for.