Gds-Global Distribution System Introduction
* Introduction
Global Distribution System, GDS for short, is a worldwide computerized reservation network used as a single point of access for reserving airline seats, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other travel related items by travel agents, online reservation sites, and large corporations. GDS is also called automated reservation system (ARS) or computerized reservation system (CRS) http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Global-Distribution-System-GDS.html * History: from flight reservation to hospitality industry
At the very first, GDS were only used for the air travel reservations but as years passed by, GDS systems became more and more evolved. As a direct consequence to this fact, GDS has been widely used in hospitality industry nowadays.
The first major impact that GDS had on the travel market was that the number of flights was increased. This led to an increase of competition and therefore travel industry prices fell. Travel agencies were accustomed with receiving a fixed fee (usually 10%) from everything they managed to sell, so once the prices started to fall, they felt threatened with the loss of their earnings. In order to counter this, travel agencies began to offer complimentary products such as car rental, hotel and other related forms of accommodation, bus tickets, vacation packages, yacht rides and even flowers and champagne. This was the first major step that GDS being used within the hospitality industry.
However, due to the fact that GDS were originally created to distribute plane tickets, their database structure was specifically designed to store information about this product. A seat on the plane is relatively homogeneous – it is basically similar to any other place on the same route. Hotel product, on the other hand, is diverse. Even a relatively standard hotel with a simple structure may have four types of rooms (suites, double, twin or single) and three categories of comfort (low, medium and high), giving it a total of 12
Global Distribution System, GDS for short, is a worldwide computerized reservation network used as a single point of access for reserving airline seats, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other travel related items by travel agents, online reservation sites, and large corporations. GDS is also called automated reservation system (ARS) or computerized reservation system (CRS) http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Global-Distribution-System-GDS.html * History: from flight reservation to hospitality industry
At the very first, GDS were only used for the air travel reservations but as years passed by, GDS systems became more and more evolved. As a direct consequence to this fact, GDS has been widely used in hospitality industry nowadays.
The first major impact that GDS had on the travel market was that the number of flights was increased. This led to an increase of competition and therefore travel industry prices fell. Travel agencies were accustomed with receiving a fixed fee (usually 10%) from everything they managed to sell, so once the prices started to fall, they felt threatened with the loss of their earnings. In order to counter this, travel agencies began to offer complimentary products such as car rental, hotel and other related forms of accommodation, bus tickets, vacation packages, yacht rides and even flowers and champagne. This was the first major step that GDS being used within the hospitality industry.
However, due to the fact that GDS were originally created to distribute plane tickets, their database structure was specifically designed to store information about this product. A seat on the plane is relatively homogeneous – it is basically similar to any other place on the same route. Hotel product, on the other hand, is diverse. Even a relatively standard hotel with a simple structure may have four types of rooms (suites, double, twin or single) and three categories of comfort (low, medium and high), giving it a total of 12