Travel Accommodation

Travel Accommodation Research Skill

Research and recommend accommodations (hotels, resorts, Airbnbs, villas) for client or personal travel. Produces a ranked overview with ratings, price context, amenities, and booking links.

Workflow

Step 1: Gather Requirements

Ask or extract:

• Destination (city/area)
• Traveler profile: solo / couple / family with kids (ages) / group
• Preferred vibe: luxury, budget, boutique, eco, party, quiet
• Must-haves: private pool, kids club, beach access, babysitting, specific location
• Budget range per night
• Dates (if specific — affects availability/price)

Step 2: Research Hotels & Resorts

Primary method — DuckDuckGo HTML endpoint (works without API key):

import urllib.request, re

def ddg_search(query):
    url = "https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/"
    data = urllib.parse.urlencode({"q": query}).encode()
    req = urllib.request.Request(url, data=data, headers={"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36"})
    html = urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=10).read().decode()
    results = re.findall(r'uddg=(https?[^&]+)', html)
    titles = re.findall(r'class="result__title"[^>]*>(.*?)</', html, re.DOTALL)
    # decode URLs & titles
    return list(zip(titles, results))  # approx

Search queries that work well:

• best family [luxury] hotels [area] [destination] [year]
• top 10 resorts [area] [destination] kids friendly
• best Airbnbs [area] [destination] family private pool
• luxury villas [area] [destination] private pool

Fallback when DDG blocks (CAPTCHA):

• Try browser_navigate directly to known review/aggregator sites
• Try html.duckduckgo.com/html/ with different User-Agent
• Use curl via terminal with the same URL + headers

Step 3: Extract Details from Articles

Once you have article URLs from search results:

import urllib.request, re

def extract_article_text(url):
    html = urllib.request.urlopen(url, timeout=10).read().decode()
    # Strip scripts & styles
    html = re.sub(r'<script[^>]*>.*?</script>', '', html, flags=re.DOTALL)
    html = re.sub(r'<style[^>]*>.*?</style>', '', html, flags=re.DOTALL)
    text = re.sub(r'<[^>]+>', '\n', html)
    return re.sub(r'\n+', '\n', text).strip()

Then scan for hotel/resort names and details using keyword matching:

• Hotel/resort names + star ratings
• Amenities: kids club, babysitting, pool, spa
• Pricing mentions
• Location descriptions

Keywords to match: hotel, resort, villa, kids, family, club, pool, suite, luxury, price, rate, beach, restaurant, spa

Step 4: Research Airbnb/Villa Options

Use same DDG search with queries like:

• Airbnb [area] [destination] family villa
• best Airbnb [area] [destination] private pool
• vacation rentals [area] [destination]

Direct Airbnb URL for area overview: https://www.airbnb.com/[area]/[region]-[country]/stays

Also check specialized villa rental sites for the destination.

Step 5: Compile the Overview

For each option, present:

**[Name]** ⭐[rating]/5
- **Vibe:** [luxury / budget / boutique / family]
- **Price:** ~$XXX-XXX/nacht
- **Kids:** [kids club? babysitting? nurse?]
- **Location:** [area, quiet/busy, proximity to attractions]
- **Booking:** [Booking.com](link) | [Agoda](link) | [Airbnb](link) | [Direct](link)
- **Note:** [why this fits the traveler profile]

Step 6: Rank with Recommendation

Always end with a top pick recommendation and why. If the user asks for alternatives, suggest 1-2 contrasting options (e.g. one ultra-luxury, one better value).

Include booking sites that work for the region:

• Booking.com — wide selection, free cancellation on many
• Agoda — often cheaper for Asia
• Airbnb — villas, apartments, family homes
• Hotels.com — loyalty program (10th night free)
• Direct via resort — sometimes better rates + upgrades

Pitfalls

• Travel/booking sites block headless browsers (TripAdvisor, Booking.com, airline sites) — use curl with real browser User-Agent as fallback, or search via DuckDuckGo HTML endpoint instead
• Google, Bing, TripAdvisor all CAPTCHA from headless — DDG HTML endpoint is the most reliable for search results
• macOS grep lacks -P flag — use Python re.findall() for regex extraction instead
• Airbnb listing pages are JavaScript-heavy — the initial HTML may not contain full listing data; use Airbnb search URLs and parse JSON-LD if present
• Price ranges are seasonal — mention that rates vary by season (high season June-Aug, Dec-Jan; low season Feb-May, Sep-Nov for Bali)
• "Family-friendly" means different things — a baby needs different amenities than a 10yo. Always match to the specific family composition (baby, toddler, teen)
• Less busy != no amenities — quieter areas may have fewer restaurants/shops. Flag trade-offs
• Article data can be stale — check publication dates on articles; prices and ratings change
• DuckDuckGo HTML endpoint may also CAPTCHA after many requests — space queries 2-3 seconds apart via time.sleep()
• Airbnb direct scraping is fragile — prefer article reviews that reference specific Airbnb listings

Reference Files

• references/bali-uluwater-family-research-2026-06.md — compiled research from a session on family-friendly luxury resorts and Airbnbs in Uluwatu, Bali for a client (Amir). Includes hotel + Airbnb options with ratings, price ranges, and booking links.