It wasn’t long ago that various pundits were proclaiming the death of the dinosaur Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and declaring that the Internet would replace us all. But for all the success of travel “supplier.com” sites – and they have had some considerable impact on GDS volumes – consumers have demonstrated that they still want choice.
I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t room for improvement in the GDS model, particularly in how we provide and present content to travel agents, corporate travel managers and other users and I’ll address some of these improvements in upcoming blogs.
Most consumers do not consider that they will receive an unbiased selection of all the travel options available when they go to a web site which is branded to a particular supplier. And they would be right. There was a tendency some time ago for consumers to believe that the only place they would see a travel supplier’s lowest price was on the branded web site of that supplier. However, through what are known as “full content deals”, the GDS industry has largely contracted with the vast majority of airlines and indeed hotel chains to ensure that all publicly available fares, seats or rooms are shown through the channels using the GDS. These channels include all of the major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) as well as the high street leisure agencies and business travel management companies. Read more »
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