Who sells hotel rooms in B2B travel: tour operator, wholesaler, bedbank, DMC

A bedbank is a business-to-business seller: it takes hotel rooms at net rates and resells them to travel agencies, tour operators and other resellers, not to the traveler. The hotel's contract is with the bedbank. The guest's contract is with whichever company sold the room to the guest.

A company you have never heard of offers to sell your rooms at your net rate and calls itself a bedbank. Before the rate sheet goes out, someone has to answer a simpler question: who is actually selling the room, and who holds the guest's contract? This article gives plain definitions of the six roles a hotel meets in B2B travel, explains where a net rate can end up, and lists the contract clauses and checks that keep it under control.

What is a bedbank?#

A bedbank is a B2B seller: it takes hotel rooms at net rates and resells them to travel agencies, tour operators and other resellers rather than to the traveler directly.

Net rate means one price with no commission built in. The bedbank adds its own margin when it resells, so the hotel usually does not see the final price the traveler pays unless the contract requires reporting. What the hotel often cannot see is the identity of the end seller and the final price. That gap is closed by contract clauses, not by goodwill.

Rooms reach a bedbank in one of two ways: an allotment, where the hotel commits a block of rooms with a release period, or free sale, where the bedbank draws from live availability. The choice decides how much inventory leaves the hotel's control. The details of that trade-off are covered in allotment vs free sale: how much inventory to commit to agencies.

The guest's contract sits with the company that sold the room to the traveler, not with the bedbank. Complaints, refunds and changes therefore arrive through that seller and then through the bedbank. Payment runs from the bedbank to the hotel on the contract's terms, often against a voucher after the stay or on agreed credit. The hotel should know in writing who is liable for a no-show.

The word bedbank is industry practice, not a legal category. No official definition exists, so the contract decides the relationship, not the label on the email.

Who sells hotel rooms in B2B travel? Six roles in one table#

Six roles cover most of the partners a hotel meets, and a single company can hold more than one of them at the same time.

The label on the email is not the role. Ask what the company does with the room, not what it calls itself. Three questions place any partner: who do you sell to, who does the traveler pay, and who is the traveler's contract with.

One company can be an operator for some rooms and a bedbank for others. The contract should say which product each booking belongs to. Record the role in the contract file, because the role decides which clauses matter: release periods for an operator, resale terms for a bedbank, scope of services for a DMC.

A partner that cannot answer the three questions in writing is a credit risk before it is a distribution question.

What is the difference between a tour operator and a wholesaler?#

A tour operator sells a package to the traveler and carries the package risk; a wholesaler buys rooms in volume and resells them to other sellers.

The package is the operator's product: transport, accommodation and other services sold at one price. The operator is the traveler's counterparty for the whole trip, not just the room. Because the operator carries that risk, it negotiates hard on release periods, cancellation and early holds. It expects rooms committed before it has sold them.

The wholesaler's customer is a business. Its margin is its own business, and the hotel's net rate is the input it works from. Many companies do both: one contract may cover package rooms and room-only resale, so read which product applies to each booking before you argue about a cancellation.

For a fuller treatment of contracting with operators, see working with tour operators: how hotels in Türkiye sell through them.

What is a DMC, and how is it different from an incoming agency?#

A DMC, or destination management company, arranges services on the ground in one destination: transfers, excursions, guides, meeting space and accommodation, usually for foreign operators and agencies. An incoming agency in Türkiye does much the same work, and the two terms are often used for the same company.

The DMC's client is a business abroad. The traveler usually has no contract with the DMC at all. The DMC may contract the hotel in its own name and resell the room inside a package, so the hotel's counterparty is the DMC while the guest's contract sits with the foreign operator.

The work goes beyond the room: transfers, tours, guides and restaurants. A hotel may be asked to be listed in a program or to bundle services it does not normally sell. Because the DMC handles the guest on the ground, it often becomes the hotel's daily contact for changes, complaints and last-minute requests, even when it is not the party that pays.

Ask where the money comes from: is the DMC paying from its own account, or passing through the operator's payment? The answer decides who to call when an invoice is late.

DMC and incoming agency are practice terms, not legal categories in Türkiye. The legal category is the travel agency with its operating certificate.

Where can the hotel's net rate end up, and what keeps it under control?#

A net rate can travel further than the contract intends: the bedbank resells to a reseller, which lists the room on a public site at a price the hotel never approved. The controls sit in the contract and in a weekly check.

The leakage path is short: hotel to bedbank to reseller to a public website or a price comparison listing. Each step adds margin and removes the hotel's knowledge of the final price.

Rate fences make a net rate unattractive to resell publicly: tie it to conditions the public channel cannot match, such as a package, a minimum stay, a non-refundable term or closed dates. On parity clauses, the legal position in Türkiye is not settled in public sources we can rely on. Describe your own case to a legal adviser before writing a parity term into a contract.

Run a weekly check: search your hotel name and a few dates on public sites and price comparison pages, compare with your own price, and log the difference with the date and the seller. The routine is described in rate parity check: a weekly routine for direct and OTA prices.

Quote discipline protects the hotel in disputes. Every quote to an agency should show its working: the net, each rule that applied, and the final price. The vocabulary for this is in hotel net rates for travel agents: rules and clear quotes.

How do I check that a partner is allowed to sell?#

Ask for the operating certificate and check it. In Türkiye a travel agency needs one to trade, and since 26 July 2024 agencies must also verify and show the accommodation facility's certificate number.

Law No. 1618 on Travel Agencies defines a travel agency as a commercial organization authorized to inform tourists, put together package tours and arrange accommodation, transport, excursion, sport and entertainment services, and its Article 4 requires an operating certificate (işletme belgesi) from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (mevzuat.gov.tr, Law No. 1618, consolidated text, 1 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)). Separately, the Travel Agencies Regulation was amended by a regulation published in the Resmî Gazete on 26 July 2024 (opens in a new tab): agencies must verify the certificate numbers of accommodation facilities through the Ministry database and show them in sales and marketing, and may not market or sell facilities that have no certificate.

What the hotel does with this: ask for the certificate number and the registered company title, and keep a copy in the contract file. A partner that cannot produce one is not a travel agency, whatever it calls itself.

Ask which legal entity signs. The brand, the seller and the company that pays are often three different names on three different documents. Get the resale chain in writing: who may resell, to whom, and on what terms. This is the clause that decides where your net rate can appear.

A certificate check is a check on the partner, not a guarantee of payment. Credit terms, references and a deposit are separate questions, and your own case belongs with a legal adviser.

What to do next#

Classify the partner before you send a rate sheet: ask who it sells to, who the traveler pays and who holds the guest's contract, then write the answers into the contract as named sellers, resale terms and a stop-sale route. The next step is to take one partner you are already talking to and place it in the six-role table, then check its operating certificate and its resale chain against the clauses in your draft.