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Caching hero

Travel search caching: high-performance search behind DealFinder

Travel businesses use caching to return broad, flexible searches quickly, without every search relying on a live call to every supplier. DealFinder is intuitive’s travel search caching technology, combining fast search with control over data freshness, pricing and supplier information.

What is travel search caching?

Make broad travel searches faster

Travel search caching is a pre-built, searchable store of rates, availability and product combinations. It allows results to be returned immediately, rather than waiting for every connected supplier to respond to every search.

Instead of calculating every possible flight, hotel and date combination live, the cache prepares and stores combinations in advance. Customers can then search broadly, filter and refine their results quickly.

This is what makes searches across thousands of hotels, multiple airlines and flexible dates feel fast and responsive.

Why caching matters

Broad choice without the wait

Caching helps travel businesses offer greater choice while keeping the search experience fast and responsive.

Search more travel options

Give customers access to multiple destinations, flexible dates, hotels and airlines within one broad search.

  
Return results quickly

Search prepared rates, availability and combinations without waiting for every supplier to respond each time.

  
Keep customers exploring

Let customers filter, compare and refine their options quickly, creating a smoother path towards booking.

  
Choosing the right search model

Live search vs cached search

Live search queries suppliers directly for each request. It can work well for narrow, specific searches, but response times may increase as the number of suppliers and possible combinations grows.

Cached search prepares and stores combinations in advance, allowing broad searches and filters to return more quickly without contacting every supplier each time.

A blended approach can use cached results for broad discovery and filtering, followed by live confirmation of the selected price and availability before booking.

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Broad-to-narrow search

From broad search to the right trip

Caching lets customers explore a wide range of travel options and narrow the results quickly without triggering a new supplier request after every change.

1
Start with a broad search

Explore multiple destinations, departure dates and travel options within one search.
2
Apply relevant filters

Narrow the results by price, duration, rating, departure airport and other criteria.
3
Compare suitable options

Review the most relevant holidays without waiting for suppliers to be queried again.
4
Continue with confidence

Confirm the selected price and availability live before completing the booking.

How travel search caching works

Supplier and direct-contract data enters the cache, where different formats are mapped into a consistent structure.

Rates and availability are combined with supporting content, such as hotel information and images, to create complete, searchable travel combinations.

The website or booking system then searches this prepared data rather than querying every supplier directly. The cache is refreshed and validated regularly to keep the results commercially useful.

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When caching fits

When travel search caching is the right fit

Caching is designed for travel businesses that need to search large volumes of supply quickly, consistently and at scale.

Large volumes of travel supply

Search across multiple suppliers and vast numbers of possible combinations without sending a live request for every customer search.

Broad and flexible searches

Support flexible dates, multiple destinations and inspiration-led journeys where customers need to explore and refine a wide range of options.

Growing search demands

Maintain a consistent search experience as supplier numbers, data volumes and customer traffic grow beyond what existing infrastructure can comfortably support.

DealFinder

Put travel search caching into action

DealFinder is intuitive’s travel search and caching technology for Tour Operators and OTAs. It powers fast, broad searches across large travel supply sets and can work with different underlying reservation systems.

Use specialist caching technology without building and maintaining the entire search infrastructure in-house. Explore DealFinder for performance information, use cases and guidance on getting started.

Explore DealFinder
DealFinder
Build or buy

Choosing how to deliver travel search caching

The right approach depends on your scale, technical resources and appetite for managing specialist search infrastructure.

Build and manage in-house

Retain direct control of the technology, while taking responsibility for supplier data, infrastructure, performance, refreshes and ongoing maintenance.

  
Use a managed cache

Use specialist caching technology without building and maintaining the underlying search infrastructure entirely within your own team.

  
Choose the right approach

Consider your search volumes, supplier network, internal expertise and long-term capacity to manage a large and continually changing dataset.

  
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Mercury Holidays reduced its average holiday search response time from eight seconds to 300ms using DealFinder.

 

“The biggest thing for us was reducing the time it takes to deliver holiday search results to our customers, as it creates a significantly better user experience.”

Tom BugejaChief Executive Officer @ Mercury Holidays

Explore related travel search capabilities

See how DealFinder, Dynamic Packaging and Connectivity work together to support fast search and turn connected travel supply into bookable packages.

DealFinder

Power fast, broad travel searches across large volumes of rates, availability and package combinations.

Explore DealFinder 

Dynamic Packaging 

Combine flights, accommodation, transfers and extras into bookable packages using connected pricing and availability.

Explore Dynamic Packaging 

Connectivity

Connect the supplier data that feeds search, packaging and booking workflows across your travel operation.

Explore Connectivity 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Find answers to common questions about travel search caching, including speed, accuracy, refreshes, supplier data and how DealFinder works.

What is travel search caching? Travel search caching is a pre-built, searchable store of rates, availability and combinations, allowing broad customer searches to return quickly without a fresh live call to every supplier for every search.
How is cached search different from live search? Live search queries suppliers directly for the most current response, but can slow down as suppliers, combinations and concurrent searches grow. Cached search pre-processes combinations in advance, so results return quickly regardless of search complexity, with live validation typically applied at the point of booking.
How often is a travel cache refreshed? DealFinder builds its cache daily using rates, availability and package information from connected data sources. Any additional update or validation schedules should be confirmed before detailed timings are published.
How accurate are cached prices? Cached prices reflect the most recent refresh rather than the literal instant of search, so a small gap between cache and live data is expected and managed through validation, health checks and confirmation at the point of booking.
What is a cache miss? A cache miss occurs when a search requests a combination that is not held within the current cache. How that request is handled will depend on the cache configuration and the supplier data available.
Which suppliers can be cached? Supplier data may be provided through APIs, file-based feeds or other agreed methods. Whether a supplier can be included depends on the structure, quality and update frequency of the data it can provide.
When should an OTA or Tour Operator use caching? Caching suits businesses searching across many suppliers and a large number of possible combinations, particularly for broad, flexible or inspirational search journeys where live supplier calls for every search would be too slow to sustain.
Can a cache work with an existing reservation system? Yes. DealFinder is a standalone travel search caching product designed to connect with existing reservation technology through its API. The precise integration will depend on the reservation system, search journey and data involved.
What does DealFinder do? DealFinder is intuitive's travel search and caching technology, delivering the caching capability described on this page as a product. Explore DealFinder for the full proposition.

Talk to our team

See how DealFinder can support faster,
broader travel search for your business.

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Let our team talk through what travel search caching could mean for your business.

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