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  • Scraping prices and availability from travel booking websites

    Posted by Sunny Melanija on 12/18/2024 at 8:26 am

    Scraping prices and availability from travel booking websites is challenging due to their dynamic nature and frequent use of anti-scraping mechanisms. Most travel sites use JavaScript to render content like flight or hotel availability, requiring tools like Selenium or Puppeteer to scrape effectively. Another approach is to monitor network requests for API calls that fetch this data. If such endpoints are available, you can query them directly for faster and more reliable data collection. For static sections of the site, Python’s BeautifulSoup can still be used to extract information.
    Here’s an example using Puppeteer to scrape prices and availability:

    const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
    (async () => {
        const browser = await puppeteer.launch({ headless: true });
        const page = await browser.newPage();
        await page.goto('https://example.com/travel', { waitUntil: 'networkidle2' });
        const travelData = await page.evaluate(() => {
            return Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.travel-item')).map(item => ({
                destination: item.querySelector('.destination-name')?.innerText.trim(),
                price: item.querySelector('.price-value')?.innerText.trim(),
                availability: item.querySelector('.availability-status')?.innerText.trim(),
            }));
        });
        console.log(travelData);
        await browser.close();
    })();
    

    For large-scale scraping, proxies and rate-limiting are essential to avoid being flagged. Scraping responsibly and respecting terms of service is also critical when dealing with travel booking sites. How do you handle frequently changing layouts on such websites?

    Riaz Lea replied 5 days, 11 hours ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Dewayne Rune

    Member
    12/26/2024 at 6:49 am

    Using network traffic inspection, I rely on APIs whenever possible. It’s more reliable and avoids the need to constantly adapt to layout changes.

  • Dewayne Rune

    Member
    12/26/2024 at 6:50 am

    To handle anti-scraping measures, I rotate proxies and add delays between requests. This reduces the likelihood of my scraper being flagged or blocked.

  • Riaz Lea

    Member
    01/17/2025 at 6:25 am

    Storing scraped travel data in a database allows me to analyze trends over time, such as price fluctuations or seasonal availability changes.

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