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the best known global CRSs are AMADEUS, GALILEO, SABRE, and WORLDSPAN with AMADEUS being the only one which is largely owned by European airlines. Together with GALILEO, it is the leading system in the European market. GALILEO, however, also has a strong position in the US market after it merged with an American system. SABRE and WORLDSPAN have been developed in the US. So far, SABRE is the only CRS which is wholly owned by one single airline.

CRSs are systems for purely (information transfer) logistical functions

he network of the global CRS AMADEUS has additional 14 network nodes distribers who thus have the latest information about availability at any point in time and can use it as a basis for a new offer. In addition, the system can also store customer related information such as e.g. all services provided to a certain customer, type of payment, service information etc. ♦ Fare Quote & Ticketing: Just like the product presentation, the fare quote, ticketing and voucher generating process depend on the type and the complexity of the services offered. For flights, multiple fares are being offered which differ according to the reservation category, the date of the journey, the day when the reservation was made, the route and the length of the stay. That means that practically each fare needs to be calculated individually. In addition, fare quotes can change daily. The prices of other service providers, however, are relatively fixed so that in most cases, they stay an unchanged part of the offer. For the ticketing, travel agencies receive a fixed number of ticket forms which may only be used after confirmation has been availability of particular reservation categories and possibly the fare. It may, however, be difficult to describe the products of other service providers appropriately with only a limited amount of information. Hotels, for example, have so far only been able to provide information about the price, the size of the bed and its approximate location which alone is not a meaningful description for potential customers. For this reason, it is intended to link the particular offers to visual multimedia technology to be able to provide more detailed information to the customer. ♦ Reservation: The core function of reservation systems and the main reason for developing them is the reservation of offered services in the travel industry. To this end, a so called Passenger Name Record (PNR) or Guest Name Record (GNR) is created for each passenger or each group of passengers. These records contain all services-related customer information. At the same time, this information is transferred to the internal inventory system of all service providFigure 2 Principel structure of CRSs N N P pr S Fare Quote and T Hotel- or Car-Systems Travel Agencies Tourism Tourism Tourism Tourism Stickynote

The major search sites routinely leave out flights (lots of them) and even entire airlines. A lot of the flights they do show are ones you don’t want, starting with “basic economy” fares that hit you with tons of restrictions and fees, so the price you see isn’t the one you end up paying, along with connections way too short or way too long, ones that no responsible travel agent would let you book.

The reality is that while it was widely predicted that the internet was going to kill off travel agents when digital tools were placed at every traveler’s disposal, that just hasn’t happened, for several good reasons.

“They can find crazy deals”; “They will be your advocate”; “They’ll take care of the little things”; “They’re true experts” and “They don’t usually cost extra.”