Guest Comment: GDSs, agents and travel providers – the new relationship
Guest comment by David Brown, Sabre Travel Network’s director for the UK, Ireland and the Nordic region
GDSs will continue to play an important role in helping travel agents make money while helping travel providers make the most of every sales channel, says David Brown.
The world of GDSs has long been a hall of mirrors – we all looked similar, offered similar technology and had similar business strategies. But times are changing and one can now see clear differences in GDS business strategies where few existed before. In fact, the very term GDS is misleading because we are all evolving into much more. The GDS, which used to be the entirety of our business, is now the core around which a much wider business is being built.
Two GDS operators have built strong airline operations businesses, two of us have started down the road of providing merchant content to travel agencies (one by negotiation and the other through acquisition), two of us have developed strong online self-booking solutions for corporate travel, and three of us have developed online retail businesses for the consumer market.
Two have made acquisitions to help boost the amount of leisure travel we can retail, and one has even set up a consortium of travel agencies to obtain preferential rates for agents and help suppliers compete in a tight market.
We are evolving as quickly as we can away from the old economic model based solely on the booking fee. We are developing new and innovative revenue streams to grow our businesses and survive in the new environment.
This is all good news for travel agents and travel providers. Why? Because GDS operators will have to offer both these customer groups more value than ever before in order to survive. It’s a virtuous circle – in order to secure good content and rates from travel providers we will need to offer these companies real technology solutions for real distribution challenges, and a compelling presence in every sales channel. And in order to achieve this compelling presence we need to offer travel agents the greatest possible range of content at the best possible rates, as well as the widest array of value-added sales and marketing tools to help them compete.
Virgin Atlantic’s innovative new commission plan, Colours, is an example of how an airline has harnessed GDS technology, in this case Sabre Travel Network’s Compensation Manager, to refine its distribution strategy. As long as we remain humble, flexible, responsive and quick to develop distribution solutions that the travel industry needs, GDSs will be here serving the industry. A little changed, to be sure, but just as useful.
Ginny McGrath
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