# On the Beach

> On the Beach Group plc (LSE: OTB) is the United Kingdom's largest online short-haul beach package holiday specialist — a Manchester-headquartered, asset-light dynamic packager that combines real-time seats from 42 airlines with hotel inventory from bedbanks and direct contracts into ATOL-protected packages, sold direct to UK and Republic of Ireland consumers through onthebeach.co.uk, sunshine.co.uk and its mobile apps. FY25 total transaction value was GBP 1.25bn across 1.7 million customers. It is a **consumer** of travel distribution APIs (Emirates NDC direct connect 2019, Ryanair "Approved OTA" 2024) and bypasses the GDS layer entirely. It publishes **no** developer portal, no API documentation and no machine-readable API contract.

This file is generated by API Evangelist from the public record. There is no provider-published llms.txt: https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/llms.txt and https://www.onthebeachgroupplc.com/llms.txt do not exist.

## What is machine-addressable

- [On the Beach in ChatGPT Apps](https://www.travolution.com/news/on-the-beach-announces-chatgpt-apps-integration-for-holiday-search/): Launched 1 April 2026, claimed as the first UK OTA on ChatGPT Apps. Invoked by tagging `@On the Beach` inside ChatGPT; returns live, bookable package combinations with a deep link back to onthebeach.co.uk. ChatGPT Apps are served over MCP, so this is the company's only externally addressable machine surface. It is distribution-gated — there is no self-serve access, no documented endpoint, no published tool list and no auth flow.
- [MCP notes](mcp/on-the-beach-mcp.yml): what was probed, what is gated, and what is explicitly not captured.

## What does not exist

- No developer portal, no API reference, no getting-started, no signup and no sandbox.
- No OpenAPI, Swagger, GraphQL, AsyncAPI, Postman collection, gRPC/proto or webhook catalogue.
- No partner or trade API. The last B2B channel, Classic Collection / Classic Package Holidays, entered orderly wind-down on 23 September 2025 and its portal no longer resolves.
- No security.txt, no /.well-known/api-catalog, no OAuth or OIDC metadata, no status page, no changelog, no deprecation policy, no trust centre.
- The FY25 results describe an internal "API-first microservices architecture", a Hotel Discovery Cache over 5 billion hotel prices and a Fast Flexible Search in-memory store. None of it is published, licensed or documented externally.

## Artifacts in this repo

- [apis.yml](apis.yml): APIs.json 0.19 provider index (apis[] is empty by design).
- [review.yml](review.yml): full probe log, switching-cost analysis and the 2026-07-28 addendum.
- [mcp/on-the-beach-mcp.yml](mcp/on-the-beach-mcp.yml): the ChatGPT App / MCP finding, with evidence and gates.
- [well-known/on-the-beach-well-known.yml](well-known/on-the-beach-well-known.yml): the /.well-known/ surface (two mobile app-association files; nothing API-related).
- [packages/on-the-beach-packages.yml](packages/on-the-beach-packages.yml): seven first-party RubyGems from github.com/onthebeach — internal utilities, not API clients, all dormant since 2018.
- [security/on-the-beach-domain-security.yml](security/on-the-beach-domain-security.yml): probed TLS/HSTS/DNSSEC/CAA/SPF/DMARC posture.

## Public surfaces

- [Corporate site](https://www.onthebeachgroupplc.com/)
- [Consumer booking site](https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/)
- [Help centre (Zendesk)](https://help.onthebeach.co.uk/hc/en-gb)
- [Affiliate programme (Partnerize / Awin)](https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/affiliates): marketing tracking links, not data access
- [GitHub organisation](https://github.com/onthebeach): 24 dormant Ruby repositories, none describing a product API
- [Terms and conditions](https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/terms-and-conditions) · [Privacy notice](https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/privacy)