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Many travel agents around the world are using the Global Distribution System (GDS) as their major booking channels

significant growth of the travel industry.

s the brain of the travel industry.

Popular GDS Systems in Travel Industry

Amadeus 1987 Iberia, Air France, SAS  and Lufthansa, Strongly based in Europe, Mid East, North Africa & Asia Pacific Galileo 1993 Galileo was Founded by a combination of 11 most significant North American and European airlines conducted by United Airlines. Currently owned by Cendant Corporation It has a strong web-presence in US and Western Europe. Sabre 1976 Initially it was founded by American Airlines. Currently Sabre is a separate entity owned by AMR corporation very strong  Global presence in US and Asia Pacific Worldspan 1990 Worldspan was founded by Delta, TWA, and North West Airlines. Further it was being sold to Transaction Processing Corporation. Mainly in the US and Europe

Please find few of the benefits of  Global distribution systems: The Use of Global distribution system shows a rise across corporate and leisure travelers GDS is highly effective in alluring the international travelers. This is the reason why using of GDS among the travel agents is growing exponentially every year. OTAs have greatly improved the travel shopping experience and convenience for consumers and have increased pricing transparency. GDSs enable the retail travel agency and OTA business models. The GDSs enable the travel agents to make their travel services available to consumers globally where they might not otherwise be able to achieve efficient worldwide market penetration through direct marketing efforts. Booking through Global distribution system is most preferable for  corporate travel agents as a suitable reservation process for holidays,  air, hotel and rental cars. Travel agents can get global platform for their business with strong market penetration Global distribution system is the base to  enter into corporate clients across the world GDS is the ability to update the status of inventory  in real time.  Due to its real-time  status update capability managers can view rates change and  can easily alter price points or make special offers. Agents can view all the changes instantly and will be able to suggest the new updates and offers to clients without any interruption to make the deal.. Its a wise decision to invest in a GDS. The system places your holiday booking services and inventories in front of  huge  clients without affecting  your marketing budget.  The unique selling point of GDS is that it Can provide best rates to your guests, which no other systems can provide.  Your gusts can find packages that include a hotel stay, air travel and car rental

Back in March, I wrote about how travel agents helped clients get home as walls of travel restrictions went up, and as airlines cut flights.

That story led a number of travel advisors to contact me, sharing their tales. With pictures of stranded travelers sleeping in airports still fresh in my mind, and thousands of others unable to get ahold of their airlines, I thought now would be a good time to remind you why it pays to use a travel advisor. From Classic Travel Connection in Birmingham, Alabama, Christen Perry recalled, “On March 11, during the middle of the President's speech to our nation regarding travel to and from Europe my team began making immediate contact with our clients who were still traveling in Europe.”

Closer to home, as millions of folks who booked direct were getting busy signals, Alexis Sherry of As Travel Pro was swinging into action. A family she had in the Dominican Republic were notified by their hotel that the airport was shutting down. Since they had used a travel advisor, as in real person, not an online screen bot, they had no problem getting through. After finding no flights available, Sherry contacted a private jet company, which arrived to pick the family up just seven hours after the hotel notified them of the shutdown. She also obtained a credit for the remainder of their interrupted stay.

perform various administrative tasks and offer excellent customer services

ensure an effortless and convenient practice for travelers

chatbots

SECAUCUS, N.J. – Northstar Travel Media, the world’s leading business-to-business media company serving the travel and meetings industries, has announced that it is supplying a unique hotel identifier that solves the problems associated with multiple identifiers. “For nearly a decade the travel industry has struggled with the costs and problems created by multiple identifiers, said Sheila Rice, VP Business Development & Licensing. “Over the years, each business created its own system resulting in a proliferation of identification numbers. A single entity may have numerous proprietary codes across different systems. As each segment of the industry tries to integrate information with suppliers, travel agents, hotels, GDS systems, CRS providers, content publishers and payment processors, predictable problems ensue.” With a history spanning more than 70 years, Northstar Travel Media is already established in the business and process of identification numbers. It is uniquely positioned to lead a solution for this long-standing and increasing industry problem. As the content provider of unique hotel identifiers, Northstar Travel Media has been supplying this data to leading travel and hospitality companies for more than a decade. Northstar’s database of 200,000 hotels worldwide contains up to 300 fields of data for each hotel. “Northstar Travel Media has a pristine reputation for providing data that is comprehensive, accurate, reliable and flexible,” said Tom Kemp, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We look forward to providing more content solutions with our unique hotel identification numbers.” Licensing of the unique hotel identifier data includes hotel name, address and telephone number. Content packages can be customized to provide solutions to meet specific needs. The Unique Hotel Identifier builds on Northstar’s existing hotel products and services that include more than 60,000 hotels around the world reviewed and classified using the company’s industry-standard consumer classification hotel rating system. Northstar Travel Media is the leading provider of news, information and data for the travel, meetings and hospitality industries and parent of brands Travel Weekly, Business Travel News, Meetings & Conventions, Successful Meetings, Incentive and TravelAge West. NTM’s electronic directories — Travel Weekly’s Hotel & Travel Index and M&C Facilities Search — provide in-depth data on hotels, meeting and convention properties, and business travel in the United States and internationally. In addition to its directories and periodicals, NTM publishes a number of online subscription information resources, including travel42, Weissmann Reports, STAR Service Online, Intelliguide Corporate and BTP24. Northstar also is an industry leader in marketing services, custom communications, content licensing and database management serving the travel and meetings industries. Additionally, Northstar recently acquired PhoCusWright, the premier global travel, tourism and hospitality research and event business at the intersection of the Internet and the global travel industry. Based in Secaucus, New Jersey, the company also has offices in New York, Glen Ellyn, Illinois; Los Angeles; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Northstar Travel Media, LLC is a portfolio company of BV Investment Partners, a leading private equity investor in the media and communications sector.

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increase 8% last month, compared with April 2012

Global corporate bookings set a new growth record of +8.8% over prior year in April, according to Pegasus Solutions, the single largest processor of electronic hotel transactions

Amadeus also found that 26% of travelers are more likely to respond to messages tailored to their personal interests, and 22% are more likely to respond to promotions that are specific to their location.

Merchandising is about providing customers with a shopping experience that presents products in the best possible light, at the best possible time, and allows them to tailor their travel experience. In the past, GDSs have faced criticism from airlines and other industry stakeholders for not always being able to accommodate this philosophy

Fast forward to today, and Amadeus is working hard to change this perception by providing tools to travel agents that allow the passenger experience to be personalized. In addition to making ancillary services available to travel agents at the point-of-sale, they can now access and book even more enriched content through ‘airline fare families’.

change how travelers pay for trips by letting them use installments for flights, hotels, and other purchases

new forms of payment could be revolutionary in the travel industry as unbundling has expanded options for leisure travel to people at all price points.

The marriage of travel and e-commerce means OTAs, airlines, and hotels have had to worry about interchange, processing fees, and increased fraud risk.

Before the pandemic, companies were managing under legacy on-premise technology, hesitant to make big investments in cloud due to concerns about cost, time and security. But in a world after the pandemic, the travel industry must adapt fast to survive

The value it delivers goes beyond technology to organizational transformation, making the journey through cloud in travel a key CEO priority.

Airlines and airports reinventing airport experiences: From contactless, smooth passage, through bag drop and security to airside shopping for travelers who have pre-filled biometric data

"We helped create online travel, but over the course of the last 15 years, the personal touch has been lost," said Joe Megibow, VP and general manager, Expedia.com. "In a world where every traveler and every trip is unique, Find Yours is our effort to capture the magic of travel and to make travel personal again. With more travel options than anyone in the world, no matter who you are and what you are looking for, we can help you 'Find Yours'."

While airlines and GDSs continue their verbal and legal sparring over the future of travel distribution, the GDS remains an essential tool for the agencies that use them, according to ASTA's 2012 GDS Report.

She predicts that the decline will ultimately stop, because the business model of current users is predicated on selling air, and nothing beats a GDS for booking seats on planes.

Corporate agents tend to use GDSs more than leisure agents because air is so essential to corporate travel.

“There’s an app for that!” Technology has already made it easier for travelers to book their own reservations, search the web for getaway destinations (and great travel packages), and run cost comparisons for their travel and accommodations – all through tapping the app.

GDSs, high traffic portal travel sites, and start-up agencies can access similar flight and hotel booking systems. This helps agents quickly filter travel options for their clients; it also enables travelers to do self-service booking independently of an agency.

Customer service is becoming easier, faster, and more cost-effective. Social media is one technology tool that enables a small staff to handle large numbers of inquiries, forward automated alerts to update travelers on delays and wait times and share interesting industry information

Jenny Rushmore, director of responsible travel at TripAdvisor, said, “We know a lot of travellers in Europe want to be savvy about the eco-friendly choices they make on holiday but they don’t always know where to go to find that information. “What makes TripAdvisor GreenLeaders so useful is that we are now providing travellers with an easy way to compare hotels’ green practices alongside the millions of reviews already on the site.”

John Alker, director of policy and communications at UK Green Building Council, added, “For the hotel and leisure sector, going green is not only the right thing to do, it’s just good business. Green should be viewed as another aspect of quality.

The same map travelers use to show where they've been around the world pinpoints every DoubleTree location. There are YouTube video tours of several properties and an engine to book rooms. The website also features tips, videos and suggestions for local hotspots from DoubleTree employees who serve as "DTour Guides."

Want to boast about your last vacation on YouTube? DoubleTree by Hilton has teamed up with Google to create a YouTube channel that lets travelers plan and share details about their trips

The same map travelers use to show where they've been around the world pinpoints every DoubleTree location. There are YouTube video tours of several properties and an engine to book rooms. The website also features tips, videos and suggestions for local hotspots from DoubleTree employees who serve as "DTour Guides."

Some of the tastiest margins in the travel business are enjoyed by the “global distribution systems”

The airlines’ chronic unprofitability is partly the result of a wave of competition

But it is also due to two moves by the airlines, from the 1990s onwards, that in retrospect were strategic errors. One was to stop paying direct commissions to travel agents. The other was to set the reservation systems free to become (as the airlines see it) profit-gobbling monsters that devour their parents.

They got you the deals you couldn’t find on your own because you didn’t have access to the resources they did.

(according the Bureau of Labor Statistics the number of freelance travel agents went from 124,030 in 2000 to 64,250 in 2014),

In an industry not renowned for the prompt embrace of technology, electronic marketing and product distribution have enjoyed uncharacteristically speedy acceptance by the hotel, car rental, cruise line, and other hospitality companies.

o reduce costs and further increase their bookings, airlines began installing computer terminals in the offices of their most productive travel agencies.  Airline managers understood it would be less expensive to have travel agents book the reservations directly into the airline systems than it would be to hire additional staff at airline reservation centers.  They also knew that travel agents were more likely to book reservations on the airline that supplied the GDS terminals.

Responding to the need for greater flexibility, hotel CRS managers expanded the inventory control capabilities of their systems to allow selling against an allocation of rooms.  Sales controls such as closed-to-arrival, minimum length of stay, and sell-through were also added.  More recently, many systems have been further enhanced to provide central reservation offices with full inventory data, with the central system having the same availability information as the hotel so that the CRO can sell down to the last available room without fear of overbooking.