In many hotels the reservation / reception staff spend almost 2-3 hours on any given day updating availability and rates on various websites. Not only is this time consuming and prone to errors but in order for these websites to sell your hotel effectively, the rates and availability need to be constantly monitored and changed.
Having a PMS that seamlessly connects to popular internet booking sites and global distribution systems and will upload selected rates and availability and download any bookings received, will certainly save time, reduce errors, but more importantly is an effective and easy way to place your hotel on the Internet market.
The Global Distribution System (GDS) was created so that travel agents worldwide could keep track of flight schedules, availabilities and prices. GDS is now used by travel agents and some travel websites to provide travellers complete packages such as travel & tours, hotel bookings, car hire, etc. GDS channels (Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus and Worldspan) can effectively reach 99% of all global travel agents.
An Internet Distribution System (IDS) is a collection of online reservation systems and travel portals which specialise in internet marketing of travel and related services. There are now more than 2000 internet reservation systems and travel websites on the Internet such as Booking.com, Laterooms.com Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, lastminute.com, ebookers.com, Expotel, Superbreak, HRS, Opodo, TUI, Worldchoice Travel and a lot more. These online systems have distinctive forces and features that can be used to drive potential travellers to a given destination and to a given hotel
The benefits of having a PMS that can link to a GDS/IDS are:
- It will place your hotel on the Internet market.
- It will market your hotel’s availability 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
- It will extensively use travel agents and some travel websites.
- It will help you to implement an online distribution strategy by offering your availability to new online distribution channels to capture new and/or bigger market share.
- It will open your property to multi-lingual destinations covering up to 21 major international languages.