Using proxies to solve four major pain points in travel data aggregation

Providing customers with up-to-date, credible and comprehensive information is the ultimate goal of all travel industry players. Although many automated tools exist for data collection, data aggregation still faces challenges such as large amounts of information processing, various limitations, and security threats. This article explores how to overcome these challenges through proxies.

What is travel data aggregation and why it’s important

Travel data aggregation is the process of collecting information about accommodation, tickets, car rentals, etc. into one platform. Companies like Skyscanner and Kayak already use large platforms, but many travel companies also rely on customized aggregators to meet specific needs.

Aggregation software uses bots to visit hotel, airline and other websites to collect and display various options in real time. Since bots can send requests faster than humans, this process can be completed in a fraction of a second.

Advantages of travel data aggregation include:

Provide detailed information on accommodation types, air tickets, local activities and more

Simplify the data collection process

Save time and human resources searching for data

Gather trend and customer preference information

Gain insights into business performance with reports and metrics such as average price and seat occupancy

Data aggregation not only provides customers with necessary information, but also helps travel suppliers gain insights such as market trends, competitors and customer engagement to improve business strategies and products.

Four major challenges faced by travel data aggregation

Despite the many benefits of data aggregation, the following challenges still need to be addressed:

Avoid IP blocking

Break through geographical restrictions

Eliminate delays and speed up the data collection process

Prevent security issues

Below we’ll explore in detail how proxys solve these problems.

Application of proxys in data aggregation

1. Avoid IP Blocking

In order to display data, you first need to get the data. Manual operations cannot handle large amounts of information, so automated tools must be relied upon for data aggregation. Crawlers expose their IP addresses when making requests, and a large number of requests from the same IP can trigger anti-bot systems and potentially lead to the IP being blocked, interrupting the data collection process.

The proxy acts as a middleman here, intercepting the request and forwarding it to the target server, hiding the original IP. By rotating IPs, proxies can make requests appear to come from different locations and time zones, thereby bypassing anti-scraping systems and ensuring successful data retrieval.

Lumiproxy provides more than 9 million IP addresses to ensure that there are sufficient resources to support data crawling and avoid IP being blocked or slowed down due to multiple users.

2. Break through geographical restrictions

Geographic limitations are often an issue when collecting data related to global travel. Some websites are only open to certain areas, and if your IP is in a restricted area, you will not be able to access the data.

Proxies help you select servers located in whitelisted areas, thereby bypassing geo-restrictions and ensuring smooth collection of required data. lumiproxy provides proxies from 195 locations, including rare locations such as Guam and Montenegro, serving region-specific data needs.

3. Eliminate delays and speed up the data collection process

Data collection is a time-consuming task, especially when a large number of sources need to be crawled. Because travel options change rapidly and customers demand the latest data, speed is of the essence. However, speed can drop for a number of reasons.

For example, when your IP belongs to an autonomous system whose routing is not optimized, speeds may be affected. Speed also depends on the physical distance between the server used and the target server. Using a proxy allows you to avoid poorly performing autonomous systems and connect to a proxy that is closer to the target server.

Best of all, proxies allow you to have multiple connection threads at the same time, just like scraping data from multiple devices at the same time. This way, you can extract large amounts of data quickly, ensuring you provide your customers with the most up-to-date information. lumiproxy provides a proxy with a 0.6s response time, which is fast enough to meet travel data aggregation needs.

We balance server load, prevent speed issues, and provide the ability to troubleshoot autonomous systems. With up to 2,000 simultaneous connection threads, you can quickly aggregate travel options, ensuring customers see the latest, most relevant data.

4. Prevent security issues

During the data aggregation process, IP leakage is inevitable. Hackers can gain access to your internal network through your IP and steal sensitive data or crash your system.

Data aggregation requires frequent access to a large number of sources, the security of which cannot be fully guaranteed. For example, even reliable websites may have malicious code hidden in their user-generated content areas.

When crawlers visit these pages, the code may automatically execute, leading to device infection. This attack, known as a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attack, not only prevents you from obtaining your data, but can also result in the loss of personal information, property, and reputation.

The proxy provides a layer of protection here. Because proxies hide your real IP, it’s difficult for hackers to track or break into your network. Proxies can act as filters, blocking sources from specific DNS names, URLs, IP addresses, or content types.

If you’re concerned that this setting might restrict too many sites, you can choose to block only certain types of content, such as code in images or specific text.

Not only does this protect your system from harmful content, it also protects against XSS attacks because the proxy handles these requests before your device.

In addition, proxies provide other security benefits, which can be found in our detailed article on proxy protection. All in all, with a proxy, you can get the data you need while staying safe.

It is important to ensure that the proxy is obtained legally. lumiproxy is responsible for the content provided. We developed an app where users, after installing the app, chose to sell a portion of their traffic to us and were compensated for doing so.

We work with reliable data centers to ensure that the proxies provided are clean and not blacklisted or involved in malicious activities.

How to choose the right proxy

Data Center Proxy vs. Residential Proxy

Data center proxy:

Generated by servers in data centers and typically used for information collection. This type of proxy has the following advantages:

Low price: (but lumiproxy does not provide this proxy, because the data center proxy itself is an inferior proxy)

High reliability: Data center servers run 24/7 and are able to handle large loads, reducing the possibility of response outages.

However, these proxies also have some disadvantages:

Easily detectable: Because data center IPs are not tied to a specific location or device, it is easier for network resources to identify and block these proxies.

Subnet issues: Data center IPs often belong to the same subnet, potentially causing the entire subnet to be blocked.

Preemptive blocking: Some websites block known data center IPs ahead of time.

Residential proxy:

An address assigned by an Internet service provider that represents a real home device. Advantages of these proxys include:

Inexpensive: Lumiproxy, for example, offers residential proxies for just $0.80 per GB.

Faster: Residential proxys respond faster.

Associated with a specific location and device: This type of proxy is difficult to detect.

Not easily blocked: Residential IPs are not pre-blocked by the website.

Harder to Detect: Using a residential IP makes it easier to simulate human traffic, reducing the chance of getting banned.

Disadvantages of residential proxys include:

Reliability issues: Since personal devices are not online 24/7, connections may be interrupted. However, providers such as lumiproxy will automatically reconnect to a different address, usually without affecting usage.

At lumiproxy, you can get a residential proxy with a 0.6 second response time for $0.80 per GB, suitable for data aggregation tasks. You can also get custom pricing if you buy 1 TB and above.

Choosing a residential or data center proxy depends on your specific needs. Generally speaking, residential proxies are the first choice for data collection.

If your project doesn’t require access to a large number of sources, doesn’t require constant monitoring, or doesn’t require greater anonymity, you can choose a data center proxy.

Learn more about the differences between residential and datacenter proxies, or contact the lumiproxy support team for help. You can also try out both types of proxies to see which one best suits your China Seo Xiaoyan needs.

Sticky proxy vs. rotating proxy

Sticky proxies assign you a new IP every 10, 30 or 60 minutes. All requests come from that IP for a set time, then automatically switch to the new IP.

A rotating proxy then changes the IP on every request, all from people in different locations, simulating human-generated traffic.

Spinning proxies make it more difficult for anti-bot systems to detect data collection activities and are therefore often preferred for data extraction.

Summarize

The task of aggregating travel data is complex and faces issues such as IP blocking, security risks and delays. To avoid these problems and provide customers with up-to-date information, use a proxy.

A proxy acts as an intermediary between you and the internet, changing the IP, providing an extra layer of protection, and speeding up the data collection process. At lumiproxy you can find residential and data center proxies to suit your needs. We use a pay-as-you-go model to ensure you only pay for the traffic you actually use.