OBT (Online Booking Tool)
OBT (Online Booking Tool) is a corporate travel booking platform that allows business travellers to search, compare, and book flights, hotels, and other travel services within pre-defined company travel policies. OBTs sit at the intersection of employee self-service and corporate cost control: they surface negotiated rates, flag policy violations in real time, and route bookings through a Travel Management Company (TMC) or directly via GDS connectivity. Well-known examples include SAP Concur Travel, Amadeus Cytric, TravelPerk, and GetThere.
Why it matters
For hotels, OBTs are a critical — and often underserved — distribution channel. Corporate travellers booking through an OBT will only see a property if its negotiated rates are correctly loaded into the relevant GDS system and mapped to the traveller's corporate profile. Rates that fall outside policy thresholds are typically suppressed or flagged, reducing conversion even when the hotel is geographically convenient.
Revenue managers and corporate sales teams need to ensure:
- GDS rate parity: negotiated rates are loaded in all four major GDS platforms (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, TravelSky)
- Policy compliance flags: rates are tagged with the correct rate codes so the OBT recognises them as in-policy
- Content completeness: hotel descriptions, amenity flags, and cancellation terms are up to date, as OBT users often scan these before booking
As NDC adoption grows, some OBTs are beginning to bypass GDS in favour of direct API connections to hotel CRS or channel manager platforms, which may change how negotiated inventory is surfaced.
Related
See GDS (Global Distribution System), CRS (Central Reservation System), IBE (Internet Booking Engine), and NDC (New Distribution Capability).