What Is a Travel Wholesaler (Bed Bank)?
A travel wholesaler is a business-to-business company that buys hotel rooms in bulk at a discounted rate and resells them to online travel agencies (OTAs), travel agents and tour operators. A bed bank is the online version of the same business (Hospitality Net). A classic wholesaler sells only to other travel businesses. Some now also sell direct to travellers (SiteMinder) (Tourism Australia).
Last updated: October 2026
How a travel wholesaler works
Bed banks are B2B platforms: they contract rooms from hotels, typically in long-haul holiday destinations, and sell them on to other travel businesses (Hospitality Net).
The money runs on net rates. The hotel agrees a net rate with the wholesaler, and the wholesaler adds its margin on top. For example, an $80 net room plus a $20 markup sells at $100, and the bed bank pays a $10 commission back to the travel agency that made the sale. In the other common setup, the bed bank is not the merchant of record: it passes a rate (say $90) to a reseller working on the merchant model, the reseller adds its own markup, and the bed bank earns a commission from the hotel (AltexSoft).
Contracts follow one of two payment models. Under a prepaid contract, the hotel is paid whether or not the rooms sell, so the bed bank carries the risk. Under pay-on-consumption, the hotel is paid only for rooms that sell, often at a fixed discount off its best available rate (BAR) (AltexSoft).
Why it matters for hotel distribution
One bed bank connection opens a hotel to a large network of travel sellers. HBX Group, the owner of Hotelbeds, says it reaches more than 60,000 travel distributors across 135 markets (HBX Group). Web Travel Group, which owns WebBeds, reported A$5.8 billion in total transaction value (TTV) for the year to 31 March 2026, up 20%, with a TTV margin of 6.8% (Web Travel Group).
Margins at the largest bed bank group are shrinking. HBX Group's take rate fell to 7.3% in Q3 of its 2026 fiscal year, down from the 9% assumed in its IPO prospectus, as more of its business moved to lower-margin third-party supply and OTA channels (Skift).
Wholesale contracts carry risks for a hotel: little control over what buyers do with the rooms, low net rates or high commissions, rate disparity from multiple contracts, and packaged rates that get unbundled and sold below the hotel's own price. Hotels are advised to treat wholesalers as true distribution partners, manage the agreements constantly and review them regularly for contract violations (SiteMinder).
Travel wholesaler compared with other channels
| Travel wholesaler (bed bank) | OTA | Inbound tour operator | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A B2B reseller of hotel rooms | A booking website for travellers | A tour operator that packages a destination's hotels and tours for travel sellers abroad |
| Who buys there | OTAs, travel agents, tour operators, loyalty programmes | Consumers | Travel sellers in other countries |
| How the hotel is paid | Net rate; the wholesaler adds its margin | Net rate that builds in a commission; the level varies by site | Net rate; the operator adds its margin |
Sources for the table: Hospitality Net, Skift, Tourism Australia.
A channel manager is the software that sends rates and availability to each of these channels.
Frequently asked questions
What is a travel wholesaler?
How do you become a travel wholesaler?
How do hotels connect to a bed bank?
What is a release period in a wholesale contract?
Related terms
See all termsWhere Jetstream fits
A wholesaler is one more place a hotel's rooms are sold, next to OTAs, the GDS, metasearch and the hotel's own website. Each one needs the same rooms and availability kept current, and the price buyers finally see has to stay in line with the hotel's own, or rate disparity follows. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's reservation system to the channels where its rooms are sold and keeps inventory accurate on each one, managed from one place.