Sunday, April 10, 2011

GDS (Global Distribution System) – Connect to the world



In this post, I would like to introduce a tool called GDS (Global Distribution System) which is common used in travel industry. GDS is a very power reservation tool for agent making airline, car rental, hotel and other travel services booking. GDS, in 1960s, was first designed and operated by airline companies to track flight schedules, prices, and availability. GDS is a tool using computerized system and digital database to restore information and make transaction through internet. GDS system provides customer access to check worldwide travel service provider through internet. GDS was actually very primary e-commerce business tool. Nowadays, GDS furthermore establish an interface on which all relative service providers, such as airline company, car rental company, travel agent, and hotel, can facilitate B-B e-commerce business model. Because of GDS, customers can seek for total solution rather than ask to different companies individually.


There are currently four major GDS systems: 
1. Amadeus   
2. Galileo 
3. Sabre 
4. Worldspan 


GDS was also common adopted in hotel industry to improve the management quality in following aspects:

Sales increase:
Customer now can easily check the availability of room and compare the price online. GDS also increases the possibility of that customer access to the hotel commercial or advertisement.  

Price and allocation management:
Based on the real-time data in GDS, hotel owner can make best pricing strategy to guarantee the profit. To chose the timing for sale promotion, the historical data and current room-occupancy status can be the best indicator.

Packages:
Through GDS, Hotel is not only selling a room for stay anymore, more comprehensive service could be provided to entice customer. For example, hotel and car-rental can be made into a bundle to increase the customer value perspective.

The chart below is the diagram demonstrate the network of GDS. The role of GDS and the relationship to up-stream user and down-stream travel service provider are clearly depicted.  




diagram is from http://www.faqs.org

6 comments:

  1. Can you tell me the difference between a GDS ans an IDS?? How does it work

    ReplyDelete
  2. GDS is the body of the system in which the information of hotels' accessibility is interchanged. IDS is more like the portal through which customers can obtain desired information. Make it easier to understand, we say Galileo is GDS, on the other hand, Expedia and Priceline is IDS. Hope you get my point.

    ReplyDelete
  3. how can someone connect to this systems? For example we are a company that build a unique rental system Rentalsystems.gr how can i connect it to IDS and GDS?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi
    Thanks for this all information about hotel management system i like it so can you please provide me more information related to this topic
    Hotel Management System

    ReplyDelete
  5. Valueable for Information...If there is any other post related this kindly inform me...


    Hotel Distribution Company

    ReplyDelete