Published: Jun 21, 2019 Last updated: Jun 21, 2019 Yan Anderson
Thanks to new technologies, travelling around the world has become super easy. Need a room in a hotel for certain dates? No problem—book a room online in a couple of clicks. Want to fly to Goa tomorrow—just open an airplane ticket booking aggregator and choose the most suitable tickets from hundreds of variants.

The point is—you can book your whole travel right from your sofa with a cup of coffee in your hand. And what’s interesting—people have already got used to receive such services fast and trouble-free. So, if you’re planning to open a booking expedia-like website, you need to think about how you will provide instant booking experience for your customers.

From this article, you will learn how to start a travel website like Expedia, what software you will need for it, and what features are necessary for expedia alternatives. But first, let’s say a couple of words about what Expedia is, how it was created, and why it is one of the top booking websites in the Internet. Read on.

What Expedia is and why it’s time to open your own expedia-like website?

Expedia is a travel booking website. On this aggregator, you can book plane tickets, hotel rooms, cars, cruises, and events. Expedia was founded in October 1996 by Microsoft and was bought by USA Networks, Inc. in July 2001. Now, Expedia travel website belongs to Expedia Group. Since 2014, is has been accepting bitcoins, which demonstrates that the company keeps its finger on the pulse.

Expedia is an ecommerce company, actually. Generally speaking, it is an online marketplace of services. It unites different companies on one platform making them vendors. Today, the world of ecommerce is being shaken by the insane growth of ecommerce marketplaces and there are still a lot of unoccupied niches. Booking is one of them. That’s why there are not so many great expedia-type websites and expedia alternatives. And you can still jump in.

Activilla is an online marketplace from Russia offering experiences and outdoor activities. The marketplace is built on CS-Cart Multi-Vendor.

How to start a travel website like Expedia on CS-Cart Multi-Vendor?

As we can see from the Google request statistics, more and more online businessmen worldwide start searching for the answers to a question: how to build a travel website like Expedia. You’re probably one of them, that’s why you’re reading this article now.

We’ll try to save your time. To launch an Expedia-like website, you need a software base that supports multiple vendors. As we mentioned before, all Expedia alternatives are simply online marketplaces, that’s why you should search for a reliable virtual mall solution. When looking for one, make sure it supports these features at least:

  • Multiple vendors. You just won’t be able to build an Expedia clone without this feature—it is the very basic function of your marketplace.
  • Booking functionality. This function is also obligatory. You need your marketplace script to support booking.
  • Multiple currencies and languages. Because a travel website is available worldwide and offers booking services in different countries, the site must be in several languages and customers need an opportunity to see prices and pay in their currency.
  • Multiple storefronts. This one will come in handy if you want to open storefronts for every country on a unique domain name.
  • Multiple payment options Your expedia marketplace software must have built-in payment gateways. At least the most popular—PayPal, Authorize.net, Apple Pay, Android Pay, eWay, FirstData, and others.
  • Mobile application. A mobile app for iOS and Android will be a great advantage. Offer your customers the best way to book from their smartphones on the go.
With all that said, try CS-Cart Multi-Vendor for your Expedia-like website. CS-Cart is a professional marketplace solution with over 500 features built-in, 1,000 third-party add-ons, and an open source code. It supports all the mentioned above features.

Another cool thing is that CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is self-hosted, which means it is installed on your own server. This way, you have full control over your marketplace, you can enable and disable any function and code custom functions and design.

Try all the Multi-Vendor features in your personal free online demo. And if you're still unsure if CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is the platform you need, check out real user reviews on the popular review platforms:

Why CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is considered the best marketplace platform on the Internet?

From 2018 to 2020, CS-Cart Multi-Vendor received a number of awards from the world's popular software aggregators and user review platforms. For example, SourceForge.net awarded CS-Cart Multi-Vendor the marketplace platform category leader, FinancesOnline awarded Multi-Vendor The 2018 Rising Star and 2018 Great User Experience:

GREAT USER EXPERIENCE 2018

RISING STAR 2018