How To Choose GDS Your Travel Agency - Centralized Services By Covering The Bookings Of Airlines Tickets, Car Rental, Hotel Rooms And More.

 

 

What Is Global Distribution System?

 

The Global Distribution System; is a primary reservation tool for travel agents. And unless you're fresh to the travel business, you almost certainly have used the GDS repeatedly during each workday. But what's GDS, and why is it important to the travel industry?

GDS may be a network/platform that permits travel agencies and their clients to access travel data, buy and compare reservations options, and book travel. GDS networks like the system operated by BookingXML generate billions of dollars in global travel sales. 

Through such commerce platforms because of the BookingXML, agents can access scheduling and inventory of hotels, airlines, car rentals, 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.

A GDS may be a worldwide conduit between travel bookers and suppliers, like hotels and other accommodation providers. It communicates the live product, price, and availability data to travel agents and online booking engines, and allows for automated transactions. 

The GDS is usually wont to tap into the company travel market because it's the power to present hotels, flights, and car rentals in one simple interface which is convenient. Many companies organizing trips for his or her staff will use the GDS as their preferred booking method.

The history of global distribution systems dates back to the 1960s when a more sophisticated method was needed to stay track of flight schedules, availability, and costs. As early as the 1970s GDSs were a number of the primary companies within the world to facilitate business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (now more commonly referred to as eCommerce). 

Airlines realized that by automating the reservation process for travel agents, they might make the travel agents more productive and essentially turn them into an extension of the airline’s salesforce. Before you investigate the true benefits of the GDS, you initially got to know it’s relevant to you and an honest fit for your hotel.

 

There are a couple of specifications that can greatly aid successful GDS connectivity:

 

• Being centrally located

• Being located close to an airport

• Room capacity of more than 20 rooms

• Lodgings that are found out for corporate markets and not suffering from seasons

 

These requirements aren't essential but are going to be beneficial. It’s also important to settle on a long-time provider and confirm you invite training and support.

One of the most common problems that travel businesses have to face if they do not have a global distribution system within their organization is the amount of time that is consumed on simple things such as gathering important information from the official website of the airline or the hotel with which your travel business is affiliated It has been estimated that 54 percent of travel agents spend at least 30 minutes per day from their time on the website and approximately 26 percent of the travel agents spend more than an hour per day.  

If a good global distribution system is invested in, all of this time could be saved and could be utilized in something more useful. The biggest advantage of a good global distribution system would be generating more revenues by upselling the services being offered, capturing every sales opportunity, and increasing the level of brand loyalty by providing faster and more efficient services.

 

 

The GDS does have a time and place! Here’s a couple of reasons why an agent might want/need to use the GDS:

 

Corporate Travel Agents:

 

Corporate travel agents book a whole lot of air, so the GDS is pretty much a must for them. This can either be an agent who books on behalf of corporate clients, or an appointed individual at an organization who has the capacity to book air for all their employees.

 

Agents Booking Complex Itineraries:

 

If your specialty is round the world tickets otherwise you have a gentle stream of clients with multi-stop itineraries, the GDS is going to be a necessity. 

 

High Volume Booking of Air-Only Travel:

 

We’ll be honest, we are not sure what other travel agents other than corporate agents book really high volumes of air. It might be an agent who focuses on booking air to a selected international destination. Who knows! But if that’s you, let me know what your niche is!!

The needs and requirements of every business organization are different so it is extremely important to be very well aware of what your travel business requires before deciding whether or not you have to invest in a particular global distribution system. Mentioned below are some of the characteristics and features that should be present in the global distribution system before you decide to invest in it.

 

• The global distribution system that you choose to invest in should be capable enough to let you customize the services that you plan on offering to your respective clients. This is extremely important because every client is different and the needs and requirements of every other are also different. You can’t offer the same service with the same features to all of your clients. 

• That is why is it extremely important that you invest in such a global distribution system that helps you to customize the services for each customer. This will also help you, as a travel agent, to save a lot of time as all of the information will be provided on a single platform and you would not have to go back and forth to gather all the information to design a suitable package for your client.

• There are some very basic features that every business needs to have to be successful, generate more revenues and every earns higher levels of profits. When it comes to travel businesses, one of these main features includes high levels of efficiency and value maximization. To increase the levels of your travel business, it is important to make sure that the global distribution system that you are planning on investing in is up to date with all the technological advancements going on around us. 

• That is important because it will drastically increase and improve the efficiency levels of your organization which will, at the end of the day, save up more time and ensures a happy and satisfied customer leading to higher levels of customer loyalty. An up-to-date global distribution will speed up the booking system of your organization, it will help you in responding to your clients without taking up a lot of time and it will provide you will enough flexibility to personalize the services according to your clients' requirements.

• One of the most important features that you should look for before deciding to invest in a global distribution system should be its ability to update without disrupting your workflow or slowing down the pace at which all the work is being done at your organization. This is extremely important because in case your selected software needs an update but during the update, all the work that you have been putting in is disrupted and all the information is lost, a lot of inconveniences might be created for you. 

• Your travel business might not be able to provide your client with the service on time and you might end up losing the client altogether. It is important to make sure that the global distribution system selected for your business is advanced enough to update automatically without slowing down your business which might result in a loss of revenues               

 

Why BookingXML Is The Perfect GDS Partner For Your Travel Agency?

 

BookingXML is customized in integrating all the major GDS providers and integrated with Amadeus GDS, Sabre GDS, Travelport / Galileo GDS which enable access for reserving airline seats, rental cars, hotel rooms, and other travel products. Our GDS Software is used as a single point of approach for checking the status and make a booking for flights, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other travel-related products. 

We offer an easy solution at close at half the total cost of other providers and a solution that works. Our advanced technology to ensure GDS distribution by your OTA is next-generation, seamless. So, the travel agents and their customers can access accurate and up-to-date information instantly at any time. 

With the integrations of a renowned GDS to your travel system via XML/ APIs, access real-time tour and travel inventories and make reservations instantly - and reduce your overheads in the process too. 

Through seamless GDS connectivity, your online travel products such as hotel, flight, car, and other products have the ability to maintain and update availability, rates, and information in real-time to all sales channels, all integrated with your website booking engine through an XML interface.