Where to source hotel rates as a new travel agency
An Indian travel agency has four realistic sources of hotel rates: direct contracts with properties, large B2B platforms, specialist wholesale desks, and public OTA rates. Direct contracting gives the best rate and takes the longest to build. B2B platforms give breadth and instant confirmation but a thinner spread. Wholesale desks give better rates on leisure and luxury inventory the platforms do not hold. Most working agencies use two or three at once and check between them.
The four sources
| Source | Rate quality | Breadth | Time to set up | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct with the hotel | Best available | One property at a time | Months to years | Repeat volume on specific properties |
| Large B2B platform | Moderate | Very wide | Days | Flights, city hotels, volume and instant confirmation |
| Specialist wholesale desk | Strong on its own contracts | Narrow and deep | Days | Leisure, luxury, groups and MICE |
| OTA or public rate | Worst, it is retail | Widest | None | Emergencies and comparison only |
Direct contracting: the real moat, and the slow one
A direct contract with a property gives you the best rate anyone can get, because there is nobody between you and the hotel taking a cut. It is also the hardest thing for a new agency to obtain, because a revenue manager signs contracts with businesses that can deliver room nights, and you cannot prove that yet.
The way in is narrow and specific. Pick five to ten properties you genuinely expect to sell repeatedly. Send them actual bookings through another channel first. Then go back with a room-night number and ask for a contracted rate. A hotel that has seen thirty of your bookings will talk to you. A hotel that has seen an email will not.
Realistic timeline: eighteen months to build a useful portfolio of direct contracts. Worth starting in month one anyway.
Large B2B platforms: breadth, and a thinner spread
Platforms like the big Indian B2B portals give you hundreds of thousands of properties behind one login, with flights, visas and insurance alongside, instant confirmation and a credit line. For city hotels, transit stays and anything price-led, they are the sensible default and you should have at least one.
Their weakness is structural, not a criticism. Aggregated inventory reaches you through a chain of intermediaries, each taking a margin, which is why the spread on the same property is often thinner than it looks. And the properties clients actually get excited about, palaces, safari lodges, plantation bungalows, boutique villas, are frequently missing, stale or quoted at a rate that is not competitive, because those properties are too small and too relationship-driven to contract at platform scale.
Wholesale desks: narrow and deep
A wholesale desk contracts a defined set of properties directly and sells those to the trade. The trade-off is explicit: far fewer properties than a platform, better rates on the ones it holds, and a human rather than a booking engine.
This is the right source for the leisure and luxury end, for groups and MICE where an engine drops out and a ticket queue begins, and for anything where the client cares which villa faces the lake. It is the wrong source for a one-night airport hotel in Delhi, where a platform will serve you better.
How to tell whether a rate is actually good
New agencies routinely accept a rate because it came labelled as a trade rate. Check it properly, every time, on three axes.
First, compare like for like. Same room category, same meal plan, same cancellation window, same inclusions. A rate that looks 8% better is often a different room type.
Second, compare against the public rate on the hotel's own website for the same dates, not against another trade rate. If your net is not meaningfully below the public rate, you have no product.
Third, cross-check between two sources on the same booking. This is the habit that separates agencies that make money from agencies that are busy.
What you should be asking a supplier before you commit
- Is this rate contracted directly with the property, or resold from a feed
- What is the cancellation window, and does it differ from the hotel's own
- Who pays the hotel, and when
- Is there a joining fee, a subscription, or a minimum volume
- Will my brand appear on the voucher, or yours
- Do you sell to consumers as well as to the trade
- How fast is a group or MICE quote, in hours not adjectives
- What happens at 11pm when the room is not ready
The practical answer for a new agency
Register with one large B2B platform for breadth and for air. Register with one or two specialist desks for the leisure and luxury end. Start the slow work of direct contracting on the five properties you sell most. Check between sources on every booking worth more than a few thousand rupees of margin.
You are not choosing one source. You are building a small panel and learning which one wins on which kind of booking. That knowledge is the asset.
Where your hotel rates could come from
Rezort.in contracts 912 hotels and resorts directly across 30 Indian states and sells them to the trade at net rates. Verification takes about three minutes and needs a GST number, not a booking history. Send us a rate you are already holding and we will tell you honestly whether we improve on it.
Apply for trade access Trade only. No joining fee, no subscription, no minimum volume. We never sell to consumers.Frequently asked
How do new travel agents get hotel net rates in India?
Do I need volume to get net rates?
What is the difference between a net rate and a commissionable rate?
Should I use OTA rates as a fallback?
How many suppliers should a new agency have?
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Written for the Indian travel trade by the Rezort.in desk. Regulatory and tax positions checked September 2026 and statistics checked September 2026; both change, so confirm anything you are pricing against with your own advisers and against the primary source. Corrections to partners@rezort.in.