MakeMyTrip vs TBO: Which India Hotel API Is Right for Your OTA?

MakeMyTrip and TBO are both Indian, both dominant, and both essential names when an OTA sources hotel inventory for the subcontinent. Yet they could hardly be more different in origin: one built its empire selling directly to travellers, the other deliberately walked away from consumers to serve travel agents. That history is not trivia — it shaped exactly what each API is best at today.

MakeMyTrip is India’s #1 OTA, NASDAQ-listed since 2010, and its API brings the deepest India domestic hotel inventory available anywhere — the MakeMyTrip hotel API reaches Tier 2 and Tier 3 city hotels that global bedbanks barely touch. TBO, a B2B-native wholesaler since 2007, offers 1M+ properties across 159 countries built specifically for the travel trade. One gives you India domestic depth from the country’s biggest consumer brand; the other gives you domestic-plus-international breadth from a pure B2B platform. Let’s see where each wins.

B2C Giant vs B2B-Native Wholesaler

MakeMyTrip is a B2C giant with a B2B arm. Founded in 2000 and listed on NASDAQ since 2010, it commands roughly 55–60% of India’s OTA market across its MakeMyTrip, Goibibo and redBus brands, with $10.4 billion in gross bookings in the fiscal year ended March 2026. Its hotel inventory is the by-product of two decades contracting directly with Indian properties to serve consumers — which is precisely why its domestic depth is unmatched.

TBO was built B2B from the start. Its founders deliberately stepped away from the crowded B2C space in the mid-2000s and became an online B2B platform by 2007, connecting suppliers to travel agents. Today TBO is a listed travel-technology company reaching 1M+ properties across 159 countries, with inventory sourced through 60+ supplier partnerships plus direct contracts, and it is natively connected to regional channels including MakeMyTrip itself. One company optimised for selling to travellers and happens to wholesale that supply; the other was engineered from day one to serve the trade.

India Depth vs Global Breadth

TBO’s 1M+ properties across 159 countries is the larger and more international catalog — genuine strength if your OTA sells outbound from India or serves the Gulf, Southeast Asia and MENA alongside the domestic market. MakeMyTrip’s catalog is more concentrated but, within India, deeper than anything else on the market: Tier 2 and Tier 3 city hotels, budget properties, homestays and religious-circuit accommodation that international suppliers carry thinly or not at all.

So the comparison is breadth versus depth, mapped onto geography. If your priority is the widest possible spread across India and abroad through one B2B connection, TBO leads. If your priority is the richest, most complete India domestic inventory — the long tail of Indian cities where bookings actually happen for domestic travellers and the diaspora — MakeMyTrip leads. Neither headline count tells you about overlap with your other suppliers, which is the real driver of whether adding one grows bookable inventory or just duplicates it — the operational cost the free report below quantifies.

Who Owns India Domestic Inventory?

This is MakeMyTrip’s decisive advantage and worth isolating, because it is the single reason many OTAs add MMT at all. Two decades of contracting directly with Indian hotels to serve its consumer base gives MakeMyTrip direct, rate-parity relationships with Indian chains and an enormous long tail of mid-market and budget properties across smaller cities. For a domestic Indian OTA, an India-focused diaspora platform, or a pilgrimage and religious-travel agency, that inventory is not replaceable by an international bedbank.

TBO is also strong in India — it is, after all, an Indian company with deep local relationships and offline contracting in India and the UAE — but its centre of gravity is the trade-ready blend of Indian and international supply, not the exhaustive domestic long tail that MakeMyTrip accumulated as a consumer brand. In practice, OTAs often reach for MakeMyTrip specifically to close India domestic gaps that even TBO leaves, and reach for TBO to add international breadth that MakeMyTrip’s more India-centric catalog does not prioritise.

Rate Models, Settlement and Billing

Both are built for how Indian agents actually transact, which is a real advantage over international suppliers here. TBO operates a B2B net-rate model with credit-based settlement — a structure long familiar to agents across India and MENA — and charges nothing to access its content, with agents paying per booking and often working on credit limits. MakeMyTrip’s B2B and API supply comes with INR pricing and GST-compliant invoicing, the paperwork Indian businesses need for tax input credit, along with the special agent rates its scale commands. For an Indian OTA the practical point is that neither forces you into foreign-currency settlement or non-compliant invoicing; both speak INR and GST natively. The choice therefore rarely turns on billing mechanics and almost always on which inventory — MMT’s domestic depth or TBO’s domestic-plus-international breadth — matches your bookings.

Onboarding and Technical Fit

TBO supports both XML and REST, a genuine practical advantage in India where many established agent platforms still run on XML workflows, and it provides mature agent-facing tooling honed over nearly two decades of B2B operation. MakeMyTrip’s API access is partner-based and oriented around its OTA infrastructure, bringing the polish and reliability of a NASDAQ-listed consumer platform. In both cases, the recurring commitments are the same and unavoidable: content storage, hotel-ID mapping, deduplication against your other suppliers, and ongoing maintenance as each API changes — plus, if you run both, reconciling the same Indian hotel arriving from each under different IDs. Those costs repeat for every supplier you integrate directly, which is exactly what the build-versus-buy math below turns on.

MakeMyTrip vs TBO: Side by Side

Figures reflect each supplier’s current published positioning. MakeMyTrip’s strength is concentrated domestic depth; TBO’s is combined domestic and international breadth — different measures of coverage.

Which Should Your OTA Choose?

Match the supplier to your booking mix. Choose MakeMyTrip if your travellers book India domestic — Tier 2/3 cities, budget hotels, homestays, pilgrimage circuits — or if you serve the Indian diaspora and need genuine domestic depth no international bedbank carries; the MakeMyTrip hotel API is unmatched there. Choose TBO if you need India plus international coverage through one B2B connection, want XML or REST flexibility, or serve agents booking across India, the Gulf and Southeast Asia — the TBO hotel API is built for that breadth. Choose both if India is a serious market for you, because MMT closes the domestic long tail while TBO adds the international spread.

Running both directly, though, means two integrations, two settlement relationships, and the deduplication of the many Indian hotels that appear in both catalogs under different IDs. That overlap is heaviest precisely in the India domestic inventory both value most. An aggregator turns it into a non-issue: one integration reaches both suppliers (and 100+ others), with duplicate listings resolved by a dedicated mapping partner so the same hotel shows once, best rate winning, and INR and GST handling flowing through a single normalised feed.

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