Signals & subscriptions

Discovery helps accommodation providers win over travelers in the planning phase of the traveler journey. The goal is to spark conversations with travelers deciding where to go next, increasing conversion and revenue with impact tracked in real-time.

Third-party integrations, analytics, logging, and many other use cases can be supported through Discovery signals and subscriptions to enrich these conversations in a way that’s good for both brand and traveler.

Set Signals allow you to push data into Discovery.

Get Signals allow you to retrieve data from Discovery.

Discovery Actions allow you to make Discovery do something.

Discovery Behaviors allow you to customize and configure Discovery behavior.

Signal Subscriptions allow you to subscribe to real-time application signals


Set Signals

When your website visitor chooses a category or page that can provide useful data and insight for Discovery, you can send a signal (via GTM, Javascript, etc.) so Discovery can respond with the appropriate context. This creates a seamless, cohesive experience as your visitor interacts with your website and Discovery.

Set Signal
What does this change?

PLAN

adults

Default adults.

children

Default children.

endDate

Default departure date.

email

Planner email address.

first

Planner first name.

promoCode

Default promo/discount/group code.

rooms

Default number of rooms.

beds

Default number of beds.

startDate

Default arrival date.

language

Sets the Discovery language (if supported).

PROPERTY

property

Default plan location.

product

Default product. Requires property.

linkerValue

Passes an analytics linker value to associate the current session with a group booking or property code. This is typically used when a visitor arrives via a direct link that contains tracking parameters.

LOCATION

country

Default country for map navigation.

region

Default region for map navigation. Requires country.

city

Default city for map navigation. Requires region.

Example

The sample code below passes signals from a specific website page to Discovery. In this example, if the visitor triggered Discovery from that page, the experience they see will be suited for planners looking for vacation rentals in Orlando.


Get Signals

Discovery will learn valuable signals as your visitor progresses through their travel planning on our application. You may want to pass these signals to your website or booking engine so that those experiences respond better to your visitors' interactions.

Get Signal
What does this return?

plan

Callback is called with an object matching the following schema:

experiment

Returns the current experiment flag for the user. The callback receives a boolean:

  • true if the user is in the Discovery group.

  • false if user is in the Control group.

Example

The sample code below passes insight that Discovery learned about a travel planner into the booking engine using the call “prePopulateBookingEngine” with the full plan object.



Discovery Actions

Action signals allow you to programmatically control the Discovery experience from your website. You can open, close, or trigger Discovery, track custom analytics events, and more.

Action signal
What it does

openDiscovery

Opens the Discovery experience.

closeDiscovery

Closes the Discovery experience.

revokeDiscovery

Removes Discovery from the page entirely.

triggerDiscovery

Triggers the Discovery flow (evaluates experiment and entry conditions).

bookingBarButtonClicked

Simulates a booking bar button click.

setExperimentFlag

Overrides the experiment flag for the current user.

trackAnalyticsEvent

Fires a custom analytics event into Discovery's analytics pipeline.

Example 1: Open Discovery

The sample code below programmatically opens the Discovery experience on the page.

Example 2: Track a Custom Analytics Event

The sample code below fires a custom analytics event through Discovery's analytics pipeline, which will be forwarded to all connected analytics providers (GTM, Adobe, etc.).

Example 3: Override Experiment Flag

The sample code below forces the current user into (or out of) the Discovery experiment.


Discovery Behaviors

Behavior signals allow you to customize how Discovery handles key interactions such as booking engine transfers and page context resolution. Behaviors are passed as part of a set signal and accept a static value, a promise, or a callback function.

Behavior signal
What it controls

bookingEngineTransfer

Customizes how Discovery navigates the user to the booking engine.

discoveryPageContextSetter

Dynamically provides property and location context for the current page.

bookingEngineTransfer

Controls the booking engine transfer behavior. Accepts an ExternalNavigationConfig object with the following options:

  • method

    • HTTP method for the transfer.

    • Supported values: GET, POST

  • queryParameters

    • Additional query parameters to append to the booking engine URL

  • fragmentParameters

    • Additional query parameters to append to the booking engine URL.Additional fragment (hash) parameters to append to the booking engine URL.

  • target

    • Window target for navigation.

    • Supported values: _self, _blank, _parent, _top

  • customHandler

    • A function that receives the full booking engine URL DTO for fully custom navigation handling.

    • Can return void, a URL string, or a promise.

Example 1: Add Query Parameters to Booking Engine Transfer

The sample code below appends custom tracking parameters to every booking engine transfer URL.

Example 2: Open Booking Engine in a New Tab

Example 3: Custom Booking Engine Transfer Handler

The sample code below provides a custom handler that intercepts the booking engine transfer entirely, allowing you to construct or redirect to a custom URL.

Example 4: Dynamic Booking Engine Transfer with a Callback

Behaviors also accept a callback function, which is called at transfer time. This is useful when the configuration depends on runtime state.

Example 5: Page Context Setter

Allows your website to dynamically provide property and location context to Discovery based on the current page. This is useful when page context cannot be determined from a single static signal — for example, on single-page applications where the URL changes without a full page reload.

The callback receives no arguments and should return an object with property and/or location.

Setting Static Page Context:

Dynamic Page Context with a Callback: The sample code below uses a callback to resolve the current page context at the time Discovery needs it, which is useful for single page applications or pages where the context changes dynamically.

Signal Subscriptions

Flip.to allows websites to subscribe and receive signals about user behavior in real time. To subscribe to a particular signal, simply push one of the supported signals into “window.ftSignals” and define the function to be called when the signal is triggered

Example 1: Discovery Open

The sample code below subscribes to the “onDiscoveryOpen” signal, which is triggered as soon as the user clicks one of the booking buttons to open Discovery. You can customize the code under “logDiscoveryOpen()” to log to your Analytics package each time Discovery is being opened on the website.

Example 2: Booking Engine Transfer

The sample code below subscribes to the “onDiscoveryTransfer” signal, which is triggered just before Discovery sends a user to the Booking Engine. You can customize the code under “logBookingEngineTransfer()” to log this event into your analytics package.


Discovery Signals

Discovery can also send data for specific events that happen during our traveler conversations. Subscribing to this data may be useful for analytics and to understand planner behaviors.

Subscription
When event fires

onDiscoveryLoad

Upon Discovery script loading on the page.

onDiscoveryExperimentSet

Upon experiment (Flip.to or Control) being set for a new user.

onDiscoveryOpen

When the user triggers the opening of a Discovery experience (by clicking the booking button for instance).

onDiscoveryPlanChange

When user plan information changes (changing dates, etc.).

onDiscoveryTransfer

When the user is being sent to the booking engine.

onDiscoveryBootstrap

When the Discovery application has fully bootstrapped and is ready to receive signals. This is useful when you need to ensure Discovery is initialized before pushing signals.

Event Data

Each subscription notification call will pass the following data to its subscribers:

Attribute
Description

source

The internal Flip.to Discovery ID, as a string (GUID).

experiment

Indicates which experiment the user falls under:

  • Set to 'true' for Discovery.

  • Set to 'false' for the hotel’s own booking widget.

mode

Optional Context description for the event, which varies by event type.

Supported values are as follows:

onDiscoveryOpen

  • planner-flow

    • User opened Discovery through the standard planner flow (e.g. clicking a booking button).

  • returning-user

    • User is a returning visitor who previously interacted with Discovery.

  • discovery-router

    • User opened Discovery through the multi-property router flow.

onDiscoveryTransfer

  • unveil

    • Name and email revealed

  • skip

    • Discovery complete without unveiling

  • bypass

    • Discovery not shown

  • continue

    • Uuser already has a plan)

plan

Object to include all relevant information for the user's intended stay as follows:

checkinDate

Check-in date, as a date object.

checkoutDate

Check-out date, as a date object.

adults

Number of adults, if specified.

children

Number of children, if specified.

promoCode

The promo code, if any, as a string.

property

Object with data of current property. This includes the following attributes:

displayName

The property’s name, as a string.

slug

The property’s unique slug, as a string.

code

The property’s booking engine code, as a string.

id

The property’s internal id, as a string (GUID).

Example


Experience Signals

Discovery can also send data for specific events that happen during our traveler conversations. Subscribing to this data may be useful for analytics and to understand planner behaviors.

Subscription
When event fires

OnDiscoveryExperienceOpen

Upon user clicking to view a particular experience

Event Data

Each subscription notification call will pass the following data to its subscribers:

Attribute
Description

uuid

The internal Flip.to experienceID, as a string (GUID).

languageCode

The language code the user is currently using to view the event.

name

The experience name.

isRecurring

Indicates whether experience is recurring.

recurringStartDate

The start date of recurring experiences.

recurringStartDate

The end date of recurring experiences.

occurrences

The occurrences of this experience around the time of booking. This will not provide dates that goes beyond more than 1 week before or after the user intended check-in and/or check-out dates

venue

The venue name in which experience is taking place.

tags

An array of all tags that are associated with the experience. Tags are keywords to define the events, and are always defined in English.

Example


Booking Engine Signals

After a website visitor submits their name and email address, Discovery sends them to the booking engine. Flip.to allows booking engines to subscribe and receive signals about each travel planner.

Example

The sample code below provides the travel planner's first name and email address to the booking engine, which can be used to populate form fields for example.

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