Navan increased business travel bookings with Rapid API

Navan is a leading global technology company on a mission to make travel and expense management easy. Its goal is to create an all-in-one solution for global companies of all sizes that integrates travel booking, corporate card and expense management. This makes it easier for business travellers to manage every aspect of their trip.

For travel management companies like Navan, hotel attach rates are a crucial measure of how effectively they can capture the full trip booking process and keep travellers from booking any component off-platform. Higher attach rates reinforce Navan’s business value proposition to its clients and leads to increased revenue and comprehensive insights into traveller preferences.

To boost attach rates in its targeted expansion markets, Navan needed:

• Access to global inventory that specifically met the needs of corporate travellers and allowed Navan to personalise the accommodation options offered to its client’s travellers.

   

• Cutting-edge technology that provided reliable speed and performance and comprehensive services that ensured it could deliver the best end-to-end experience possible.

Rapid API gave Navan access to competitive rates at more than 750,000 global accommodations¹. It particularly valued the following differentiated rate types available through Expedia Group, including: 

• Expedia Group Business Rates: these rates are only available to our corporate travel partners. They offer same-day cancellation, the ability to earn hotel loyalty points and business-friendly amenities like free breakfast or a nightly rate discount. 

• B2B Distribution Rates: these high-margin rates are priced similarly to standard rates but yield deeper margins. Nearly half of the properties offering these distribution rates do so exclusively through Expedia Group for our B2B partners.

With 24 million property images, 12+ million room images and 103+ million traveller ratings,² Rapid API gives business travellers the confidence to book properties that best fit their trips.

Handling over 12 billion calls every day for partners,³ Rapid API offers industry-leading response time, technical stability and comprehensive technology for shopping, booking, payment and post-booking services.

In comparison to other accommodation inventory sources, Navan saw diminished property and traveller friction with Rapid API bookings. It attributed this to the quality of technology and operations, and Rapid API gave them peace of mind knowing its client’s travellers benefited from an enhanced end-to-end booking experience.

Navan can also count on our automated notifications that surface any incidents.

We know the travel industry is always evolving, and that’s why we make sure our Rapid API technology keeps pace with what our partners need.

We do this by regularly introducing new features like instantly available booking receipts for prepaid bookings. This technology enhancement allowed Navan to solidify itself as a singular travel, corporate card and expense management solution. 

Rapid API’s expansive inventory helped increase Navan’s attach by 8 points or 800 basis points when it was first introduced in 2018.⁴

Navan said that Rapid API inventory often outperforms that of other third-party suppliers they use.

With the high-quality global inventory, competitive rates and reliable handling of bookings, Navan achieved significant annual growth in its Expedia Group booking volume and value. This has been evident since its Rapid API integration and is supported by its recent Expedia Group booking numbers:

Navan also saw major growth in year-over-year Expedia Group bookings for rate types it prioritised.

Since its integration of the Expedia Collect Booking Receipt feature, Navan leveraged Rapid API-generated booking receipts for 93% of its total Expedia Group bookings. They also averaged a 99.9% success rate of retrieving the receipt in the API response.⁹

This has helped Navan deliver an optimal business travel booking and expense experience for its clients.