Group items tagged

October 2002 - The travel marketplace is a global arena where millions of buyers (travel agents and the public) and sellers (hotels, airlines, car rental companies, etc.) work together to exchange travel services. This is a good article talking about four major GDS System companies in the world nowadays. When we do some research in GDS area, it is better for us to know some information about these four companies. They are Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan. The author said that Aadeus is Number 1 inlocations worldwide compared to other three companies, Galileo International is a cautions follower when it comes to technology when compared to other GDS companies. Sabre's competitive strenghs are market position, global reach, stable product line, diversification of revenue streams and intellectual capital. And Worldspan has successfully developed the strategies and solutions to ensure the company's long-tern success. After read this article, I think I have the big picture of what GDS System is. The author gave us the strength of different systems. I know what are these GDS companies doing right now in the world. And what is the best is that the author used some accurate data to support the point. So in my point of view, I don't only understand the knowledge related to GDS System, but also learn the way to write my paper, that is using lots of numbers.

GDS is started on the airline industry. And with it development, the airline company recognized that the GDS is becoming more and more important and necessary. And in my opinion, the GDS can not only focus on the airline. It can be on the internet. That is means they should built some sub-company around the world and it will help to form a kind of net that can cover all over the world. So that it is reduce the pressure of airline and increase the short distance distribution. it will be more efficiency for the guest and less human labor.

More and more customers rely on global distribution system to buy hospitality products in present time. This article introduces four major type global distribution systems, Ama dues, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan. There are also some smaller GDS existed in the world. Amadeus is the youngest of the four GDS companies. Galileo International is a diversified, global technology leader. Galileo's competitive strengths include well-balanced and global presence, relationships with diverse groups of travel vendors, technologically advanced information systems and a stable product line. Sabre's competitive strengths include market position, global reach, stable product line, diversification of revenue streams, and intellectual capital. Worldspan provides worldwide electronic distribution of travel information, Internet products and connectivity, and e-commerce capabilities for travel agencies, travel service providers, and corporations.

With the majority of bookings done through the internet, hotels need to find the best ways to make their websites attractive and engaging for a guest. Here are the ten e-commerce ideas that a hotel should strongly focus on. Number one, high quality images. A guest wants to see your property, and see the amenities that are offered. Provide a clear image of these items to them, so that they are aware of what makes the location great. Two, focus on the location's credibility. and build a reputation of trust for your location. Guests do not like to be fooled, so you must prove that you have integrity to gain business. Three, simplify the booking process. For many people it might not be an issue to navigate through the internet and book a room, but for some people it is. Make sure that the process of booking a room at your sight is very easy, and is comfortable for any guest. Four, integrate customer service channels. If your guests have questions before booking, then try to answer them as fast as possible. This works with the second step of improving credibility. Five, not only should you make the booking process simple, but the navigation process as well. Your layout should be clear, and guests should easily be able to figure out where it is that specific information is found. Six, have only one call to action per page. A call to action is a phrase that when clicked on, creates a certain thing to happen. Like clicking on a button that says "Reserve now", and then being led to a reservation page. It is important to only put one on a page, because several can seem cluttered and confusing. Seven, make the site friendly to cellular devices. Many of the reservations are done last minute, and on a cellular device. Make sure this is easy for your guests to do. Eight, the importance of PCI. There are many threats out there to our finances, and as a place of business it is up to you to secure the financial information of the guests, to avoid any fraud or theft. Nine, optimize o

In today's society it is extremely important for the hotel industry to make use of the e-commerce technology. This article focuses on the ten best e-commerce practices. Best practice number one is to use high resolution photos that are a true representation of your hotel. These photos should be frequently changed and of good quality. Secondly, show your guests that they can trust you and your website, by building credibility. E-commerce is designed to make the process better, thus, thirdly, ensure that it is easy to book a room through your website. The fourth best practice is to ensure that you are clear about ways that your customer can reach out to you for information. show that you are accessible. Next, the author mentioned the importance of making your website user friendly and easy to navigate. Additionally, have one call to action button so that customers are not confused as to where to make their selection or booking. Consumers are now using cellphones more to book hotel accommodations, thus, another best practice is to ensure that your website is mobile friendly. Internet security is a concern for consumers. Best practice number eight is to ensure that your website is secure for financial transactions. The ninth best practice is ensure that you make use of email marketing. Your website should have the ability to collect emails from each user. The final best practiced listed in the article is to use marketing techniques like persuasion elements that go the extra mile to convince guests to book their hotel. The ten best practices outlined were listed for hotel operates to analyze their website and identify ways to improve if necessary.

My company works specifically in the short term rental space, and I wanted to comment on number 9 and offer some insight and results from properly managing your email list. First and foremost, having an email list increases return customers to your platform or rental site by over 300%. Most companies in this space have spent countless hours creating and defining specific messages to potential guests, which begin from the first time they visit the site, all the way until they checkout. Each time these touch points, through email or other communications, increase the likelihood of the guest to use the rental company, condo association, or hotel year in and year out. A new method of communication that is being used industry wide is through text messaging. I believe that this form of e-commerce will enable faster delivery of information to customers and allow managers to personalize experiences at the hotel or property. This follows along the lines of remote locks and other services that are technology based rather than requiring personnel to execute, greatly reducing overhead costs.

The article discusses the definition of GDS and how important it is in the travel industry. As stated, the three main GDS systems involve Travelport, Amadeus, and Sabre with Travelport generating billions of dollars in travel sales. Upon explaining how important GDS is in the hotel and airline industry, it also explains its importance to travel agents as it points out reasons for why it has a bright future in the hospitality industry.

The Article talks about how important is the GDS in the travel industry. where some agents can access to scheduling and inventory for your hotels. it talks about three important GDS Systems like the Travelport, Amadeus and Sabre.

This article describes GDS as a network/platform that enables travel agencies and their clients to access travel data, shop for and compare reservations options and book travel. Agents can access scheduling and inventory of hotels, airlines, car rentals, and (some) railway and bus reservations - in real time. GDS links all those services across the three primary travel reservation sectors (airline, hotel, and ground transportation, i.e., car rentals), and activities. GDSs are very important to travel agents and they will continue to be used and will continue to evolve.

Global distribution systems have grown immensely in the last couple of years. This article mentions the biggest and first companies to have created and used GDS. These were and are important companies with in the hospitality industry, they started using these systems to track themselves and created a monster that is now the best way for consumers to book and edit their reservations.

this article highlights the impact of property management systems on accomodation owners in the hospitality industry

The chosen article provides an overview of proximity marketing and its benefits for improved consumer satisfaction and loyalty. Particularly, the article suggests that proximity marketing helps to personalize the consumer experience and provide a sense of connectedness with the brand they are purchasing from. Businesses that manage from a specific location may issue coupons or offer discounts applicable to the consumers within a store to enhance purchasing experiences. Proximity marketing is commonly implemented by hospitality organizations, where various on-site events are arranged or individual purchase-based rewards are offered to consumers. Similarly, restaurants engage their consumers in fun activities and games as well as introduce new discounts and promotions while they wait for food. Real-estate businesses also use proximity marketing to create high-value where need and preference-based homes, office spaces, and rentals are offered. However, advertisers need to be aware of consumer preferences to offer useful and effective personalized services. Geo-targeting is an impactful proximity advertising technique where location data is used to tailor offerings as per the identified local trends and behaviors.

Marketing and E-business for tourism industry A good marketing plan is important to the success of businesses. There are several guidelines and ways to use electronic medium to stay competitive. A business has to always take care of the existing customers and their needs without forgetting to attract new customers. Tourists are using internet to shop for new destinations so an online presence is very important for consumers so they will be able to find out information about the business. There are several guidelines to consider: * Promptness people expect to get a response within a reasonable time. * Quality means that your website should be able to compete with other websites on the internet and this means that it should have good quality photographs and professional tone to the websites. * Consistency means a good consumer service and a professional image. There are many ways to promote services online: email newsletters and promotion, building traffic by working with other websites, offer deals, get involved in discussion sites about the industry you are in. During an off season bookings, simplicity of booking should be a priority. Tourism operators should join travel and tourism "mall" to offer their products and host their site and use these low cost services. Companies can also promote their products online by offering auction style sales that helps consumers have some kind of control over the prices of the different services in tourism. One of the perks of online shopping for travel services is the price transparency and the fact that costumers have choices of different prices in front of them. Company should Increase a web marketing pull by offering different services and also advertising with other companies. Promote and minimize the costs of the services by adding "do-it-yourself" features. A list such as: A FAQ, maps of location of other area attractions and local guides for rental outlets. To improve the way you market your products and

This article discuss about the new approach selling digital products. By this approach the seller will rapidly maximize revenue and earn high customers satisfaction. The digital products, such as software and game, are different from the physical goods e-commerce for the intangible trait. Therefore, the seller don't need to use the traditional sales approach, such as item-based. Instead, in order to increase the revenue and build perpetual relationship with customers, the seller can sell the digital products by various ways or steps, for instance, one article of a e-book at a time, the right to make copies of a game, and time-based rentals of a magazine. When visitors are looking for their products, instead of recommend a specific product, seller should provide a set of related products according to options that visitors choose. This sales approach might need a new technology to manage the website and a platform that support flexible operation. Overall, digital goods seller can take advantage of the special traits of digital content and change the sales way develop loyalty and maximize the revenue.

There is a lot of talk within the travel industry about the future of travel distribution. Some argue that direct bookings from airlines are the new future, while others are arguing that the continued use of GDSs still remain essential to travel distribution. ASTA and Travel Weekly conducted a survey of travel agencies to get their take on GDSs. Although the use of GDSs continues to shrink, the declining rate of use has been slowing down. In 2010, the rate was 76% and in 2011 the rate was 75%. In 2012, surveys found that 72% of agencies surveyed were still using a GDS. ASTA predicts that the rate of decline will eventually stop because no other method of booking flights beats the GDS System. Agencies surveyed said that they continue to use GDSs because of the speed, and the ability to easily compare airlines and hotels. Airline bookings continue to be the main reason for the success of GDSs, with 90% of air bookings made through the GDS. 95% of car rentals are made through a GDS, and 50% of hotel bookings are done through GDS. GDS systems continue to drive competition, and make it easier for agencies to negotiate with suppliers. Agencies also continue to receive incentives from GDSs as long as they use a GDS. I believe that as long as travel agencies stay in business and are continuing to turn a profit then the GDSs are safe. Travel agencies are not likely to switch to a new system if the easily accessible, and easily manageable system is still GDS. If travel agencies begin to become less popular, then GDSs may see a rapid decline in the use of the system.

The central reservation system plays major role in the hotel industry. It's a system that is used to store and receive information and handle transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rentals and even activities. It all started in the 1950's according to travel tripper by the following decade hotels begun using it world wide. However, with the internet constantly growing and inventing new distribution channels and booking methods. It's making it harder for hotels to keep up with this ever changing market some have left their most profitable booming channel fall behind. In my findings after reading this article, the central reservation system must find ways to evolve to compete with online travel agencies. Because many travelers are using third party distributors that offer better user experience and hotel are seeing a slimmer profit margins as their share of direct bookings shrink.

Global Distribution Systems were originally created by airlines to reach more customers, and provide access to fare and flight information to travel agents. They have expanded into the hotel and car rental industry, and are widely used by online travel agencies. As peoples access to the internet increases, airlines have tried to get consumers to move away from the GDS, and book directly on their websites. This has proven to be a difficult challenge, and it is clear that the GDS will continue to play a major role in the way travel is booked, at least for the near future.

Very interesting! I hope they are right!!

In the article Mr. Lassana Tunkara talks about the positive impacts information technology has on the travel agencies, tourism industries and individuals that uses the internet. Everybody is becoming computer literate since it's the number one means of communication through the internet. Information technology has taken over the world. In the past if you want to book a vacation, you would have to find the closest travel agencies to you. You would spend a couple days in the travel agent office looking through brochures. With the advance in information technology, you can do so from the comfort of your home with just your laptop and an internet connection and logging to your desire website. The tourism and travel industry depends a whole lot on the internet as a means of communication, through emails and other forms of communications. With the advance in information technology cost is reduced, the speed at which information is transferred and retrieved has increased. Information technology has transformed the tourism industry, it changes the way the services are delivered and customers' expectations are much higher. With the internet all these industries are able to communicate with each other, such as travel agencies, airline, hotel and car rental companies. Doing reservation is much easier for everyone involve, it can be done anytime and anywhere without having to sit in a travel agencies office going through tons of brochures.

Point of sale systems are utilized in many industries, however, it is prevalent in the hospitality industry. Point of Sale Systems is also referred to as Point of Service. A POS system encompasses various hardware and software such as touch screen display, barcode scanners, cash registers, scales, and receipt printers. Improvements in technology such as POS have made cash registers, paper tapes and journal tapes almost obsolete. During the late 80's and 90's credit card processing was implemented making it easier for customers to easily transact business with operations. Today hospitality POS systems are among the most sophisticated, powerful and user friendly networks. Many POS systems are fully integrated so managers can track inventory, sales, rental services, accounting and customer relation management. Depending on the size of the hospitality facility, management may be primarily concerned with implementing POS systems. Some o f the questions pertaining to POS that managers may have include: a) How many POS terminals do I need? b) Should I run credit cards through my POS system? c) Which style of computer is best for my facility? d) Do I need pole displays or customer displays? e) Should I have a back office computer?

Green Initiative by Hilton Hotel Hotels as well as other service industries are looking for new ways to run more efficiently and looking to nature to give them some ideas. The latest in green technology is allowing hotels to push the eco-envelope and create energy efficient roof systems that also help the environment, and provide a visually beautiful space for their guests to enjoy. Hilton Hotel chain recently constructed Hilton Baltimore to break records with their proactive "green" policy, by creating garden to cover the entire roof, which Hilton looks upon as a commitment to the community and environment- a top level priority which stems from the top at the corporate level and is implemented down to the property level. This kind of innovation benefits all the major stakeholders…….it helps the environment by reducing rain water run-off, creates habitants for birds to thrive, helps to keep the hotel cool thereby reducing utility expense, it also provides a conducive atmosphere for the guest to enjoy and above all it generates good will for Hilton Hotels. This is not just happening in the U.S. Hotels around the globe are choosing to guide their business towards efficiency utilizing green roof technology. Besides recycling, and purchasing 'Green Sustainable Energy Credits' for 50% of the energy it utilizes annually, InterContinental Chicago hotel initiated "waste minimization" with a program that donates table scraps and leftover foods to local farms or composting sites. They have also introduced 'Green Weddings' and 'Green Meetings' options for event planners, bicycle rentals, organic wines and foods, and distribute seeds to employees to encourage giving back to the environment.

In reference to this article and rise of E commerce and It in the hospitality industry has been a great impact over the years. Statistics show that online travel sales is projected to grow to 8.9 billion in 2002. This amount of sales includes rentals, hotels, and will help to reduce the amount of commissions that are paid to suppliers. Another impact in Hospitality is that of Information Technology. the trend is very fats in the industry because it is easier for suppliers as well organizations that can communicate faster and get better results. With this in mind helps to reduce the cost of overhead, and to help marketing managers take advantage of data that is stored in warehousing that helps target specific markets and competitors.

Nowadays global distribution systems interconnect almost everything within the hospitality industry, from hotels to car rental companies and travel agencies. There are four major GDS available: Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and WorldSpan. Some of the advantages provided by GDS are their availability (99,9% of the time), their response times (up to a fraction of a second), their multiple booking capability, as well as their top of the line architecture. On any given day, a GDS will be capable of accessing over 50000 hotels and approximately 1000 airlines. Through GDS systems, people are able to book various hotel rooms, tours, airline seats, cruises and even limousines.

This article discusses what travel agents think about the enhanced ability of both corporate and leisure based travel agencies to sell airline ancillaries because of improved Global Distribution Systems' technologies. Ancillaries are products and services that airlines sell to gain additional revenue on top of your ticket price. Ancillaries have become increasingly popular in the airline industry because of the sky rocketing price of jet fuel. To keep ticket prices down airlines are "unbundling" items from the overall experience. This presents them with an opportunity to turn a profit by charging fees for bags (carry on, checked, additional), on board food and drink, credit card purchases, headphones. It seems like everything you encounter from when you arrive at the airport to when you disembark the plane has a fee. This phenomenon is especially present in Low cost carriers such as Spirit, Air Tran, Jet Blue, etc. However there are consumers who disagree with this additional costs as is apparent in Southwest's continuous marketing campaign. I'm sure everyone has seen the commercials with Southwest representatives 'flagging' down unnecessary fees in order to promote their 'bags fly free' campaign. Anyhow the reason I am explaining ancillary revenue is because travel agents are now starting to sell more ancillary products such as hotel accommodations, travel insurance, rental cars because of GDS technologies. They can track the sale of fees through EMD (Electronic miscellaneous Documents) which is the current industry standard. In the article some agents state that the EMDs are hard to understand and use. I believe until the EMDs become "seamless and easy to use" there will exist some hesitation to sell airline ancillaries. However on the other hand the article states that Travelport is working towards a simple and uniform platform called Travelport Universal API/Desktop. Once this comeplete perhaps more agents will feel comfortable selling ancillaries. This is a goo

I still remember when most airlines used to include breakfast or dinner for their passengers including alcoholic beverages well that doesn't happen any more. I believe when Travelport Universal Desktop becomes available it would become more clear to travel agencies the transaction process and for the consumers what products and services they are ofering.

I too miss the days of free sodas and peanuts. "Sigh-" sometimes its the little things in life that bring the most joy. I agree I think the new Travelport Universal Desktop will be a valuable tool if utilized correctly.