A developer creates a functional booking screen in one afternoon. When the CEO sees the demo, he asks himself the obvious question: If we could build this ourselves now, why pay a third-party vendor?
It’s not a bad question to ask. Software is now faster and cheaper to produce with the help of an AI code generator and the process called Vibe coding.
According to CNBC, 25% of startups in Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch reportedly wrote 95% of their code with AI. European Business Magazine has recently examined its impact on the value and sales of software companies.
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SubscribeThe build-or-buy discussion is back on the table for travel companies as well. However, a travel software’s booking screen is the simple part, and that’s the reason why this choice is not as easy as it sounds.
What AI Actually Made Cheap
Let’s respect AI. Prototypes, front-end screens, internal dashboards, and one-off reports are no longer weeks of work. Finally, the jobs that have always been postponed by teams such as test coverage and documentation have become affordable.
Travel software companies see it in their own delivery work. For instance, at GP Solutions, an international travel software provider, they use AI to write code, analyze legacy applications prior to migration, conduct testing, and generate documentation. It has revolutionized the speed that a project can get from idea to working software.
Long the most dreaded line in any IT budget, legacy modernization, now looks different. AI can scan through years of uncommented code and provide a map of what it is actually doing. This is the work that would normally take a team weeks to do, digitally excavating the code as they worked.
Therefore, if you are asking in 2026, “Can we create a booking interface ourselves?”, the answer is probably a resounding yes. It’s the more difficult question that underlies it.
What AI Didn’t Make Cheap. Logic Inside Travel Industry Software
Take one regular package booking. A travel agent makes a booking for a family for a week in Crete, which includes a hotel booked on a contracted rate, an air ticket at dynamic fares and a local transfer from a local company, for which the travel agent receives a commission.
Now calculate the number of rules behind this one booking:
- The hotel allotment has a release date, and once all the rooms have been sold, the unsold rooms are returned to the hotel.
- The hotel rate and the flight fare are in different currencies.
- The terms and penalties for cancellation vary among suppliers.
- The agent’s commission is based on contract, season, and sometimes on sales volume.
After 14 days, the family changes their dates — and all the rules above are repeated.
It takes minutes to write each rule. To know the rule takes years. Each of these rules exists in travel industry software because something went wrong – a hotel booked too many rooms, a penalty was not paid, a supplier got paid twice.
But there’s more than just the connections with suppliers. Each GDS, bed bank, and local supplier publishes the data in their own format and updates it at their own rate. If one fails without a fuss, then you keep on selling rooms that don’t exist anymore, and you only discover this when your guest is checking in.
In European Business Magazine, Tim Schumacher cautioned that founders’ most expensive response to a question in due diligence is “We don’t really know.” In travel, that’s more expensive than a lower valuation. If no one can tell you how your system computes a cancelation penalty, you’ll find out when a customer complains or when you get an unpaid supplier’s invoice.
A Simple Rule for the Build-or-Buy Decision
Develop the area that is different and unique. Trust a solid foundation for all the operators’ needs.
It is best to ask three questions before you order a new module:
- Would there be any customer or partner who would notice the difference?
- Would you like to keep it for another 10 years?
- Does it come in contact with money, contracts, or suppliers?
If the answers are no, no, and yes, building it from scratch is a risk you don’t need to take. That’s where the value of proven travel software becomes evident.
If you’re in a different environment, construct freely. Custom development is a benefit where a unique style of packaging trips, niche product, or your own pricing technique is the key.
Picture two operators. A luxury specialist creates its own itinerary designer for advisers to help create a custom itinerary for clients as they go. A cycling-holiday company creates packaging based upon the trip, which is not provided by any other product.
Both of these do not need to develop new methods for releasing allotments or for reconciling supplier invoices. That work will be identical for all operators, so why pay for it twice?
GP Travel Enterprise by GP Solutions includes the common elements of any travel business (product and inventory management, supplier relationships, sales and distribution, reservation and operations), and operators can extend it with their own unique development. If the operations of the DMC do not conform to a ‘standard’ model, software vendors develop a fully bespoke package for them.
AI Makes the Hybrid Model Stronger
The question is posed in the title: should you build, buy, or vibe code? Honestly, all three, all in the proper location.
AI is most valuable in the layer on top of a solid base: new booking flows, partner portals, reports, and connections to the existing CRM and ERP systems. This layer used to cost far more, so companies thought twice before customizing their software. Now it can be faster and for less money.
If you find yourself in this situation, try this simple exercise first. Divide your existing system into two lists: things your customers and partners would miss if your system went away and things you’d need to work reliably every day. The first is your “build agenda” and the second is where an established core belongs.
So the next time someone asks you why you pay for a platform when AI can write the code, you’ll have an answer! The cost of the code is inexpensive. That’s the logic behind your travel software that will keep your business running, and it’s what you should invest in.
