Consortia: what travel agency and hotel consortia mean for your hotel
Consortia is the plural of consortium: a group of companies that join together to carry more weight than each would alone. In hotels it usually means a network of travel agencies that agrees rates and extras with hotels for all its members, or a company that books business travel for many firms. A hotel joins each one's programme once a year, offering a rate below its public price or with extras such as breakfast, in return for being shown to the agents who book.
Also called: consortium, consortia meaning, travel agency consortia, hotel consortia, consortia rates, consortia programmes, TMC hotel programmes.
A OneHorizyn page. Updated .
The three kinds of consortia a hotel meets
- Travel agency consortia: networks of travel agencies that work together to gain, in D-EDGE's words, stronger market presence and booking power. They agree a set of hotels with special rates or extras, which get, as D-EDGE puts it, preferred placement in the agencies' systems.
- Travel management companies (TMCs): firms that organise business travel for many companies, agreeing rates for flights, hotels, cars and rail for their corporate clients. Their hotel programmes work like a consortium's, for business travellers.
- Hotel consortia: groups of independent hotels that market and sell together under one name while each keeps its own, such as Preferred Hotels & Resorts, which describes itself as a global family of independent hotels and resorts.
The rest of this page is about the first two, the programmes that bring a hotel bookings from agents. A hotel consortium is a choice of a different kind: to belong to a group of hotels under a shared name.
How a consortia programme works
- 1Each year, in the months before the programme's year begins, the consortium or travel management company invites hotels to bid through a request for proposal (RFP). D-EDGE's guide to the 2026 season gives deadlines such as 15 September 2025 for American Express GBT and BCD Travel, and 28 November 2025 for Flight Centre.
- 2The hotel answers with its rate: a fixed price for the year, or a set share off its public flexible rate each night (a dynamic rate), with the extras it includes.
- 3The rate is loaded in the global distribution systems (GDS) that agents book through, under the programme's own rate code, so that only its agents see it.
- 4The hotel pays a fee to take part, set by each programme, and the agent's commission on each stay.
- 5Agents book it through the year. D-EDGE says a hotel may lower its rate at any time but may not raise it above the contracted rate.
What a programme asks of a hotel
The smallest discount off a hotel's flexible public rate that consortia and travel management company programmes typically ask for, depending on the programme, as D-EDGE's guide to the 2026 season sets out. They also typically ask for the same rate on every channel, last room availability, a 10% commission to the agent, and rates valid all year with optional blackout dates.
- The same terms for every programme you join: D-EDGE says that what one programme gets, the others must as well.
- Last room availability: the rate stays open as long as you have a room to sell. Under non-last room availability, a hotel may close the rate on busy nights and charge more.
- Blackout dates: nights the rate doesn't apply to, such as a festival or a fair, which programmes limit in number.
- Extras in the rate. D-EDGE says travel managers look for value such as free wifi, breakfast, parking and an airport shuttle.
- A cancellation policy no stricter than the programme's: in D-EDGE's guide, American Express GBT asks for free cancellation until at most 48 hours before arrival, and BCD Travel for a policy of at most 72 hours.
- To be bookable in the global distribution systems at all, through a company that connects hotels to them.
The fee D-EDGE's guide lists for its own clients to take part in American Express GBT's hotel programme for 2026. Each programme sets its own fee. For some consortia D-EDGE offers instead a one-off fee and then a fee for each room night booked.
A worked example: is a programme worth its fee?
A 50-room hotel in Bengaluru joins one travel management company's programme for a year, for a fee of ₹1.6 lakh. Its public flexible rate averages ₹6,000, and the programme's rate is 10% below it, ₹5,400, with a 10% commission to the agent, so the hotel keeps ₹4,860 a night. In the year the programme brings 400 room nights: ₹19.4 lakh kept, or ₹17.8 lakh after the fee. Had it brought only 30 room nights, ₹1.46 lakh kept, the fee would have cost more than the bookings brought.
Before renewing, count each programme's room nights, at what they left you, against its fee, and ask how many of those guests would have found you anyway.
Is a consortia programme right for an independent hotel?
It suits a hotel whose guests come through agents and companies: one near offices, an airport or an industrial area, or a resort sold by agencies abroad. It suits less a hotel whose guests mostly find it themselves, on Google or the booking sites.
- Ask each programme which of its agencies or client companies book your town, and how many room nights they booked there last year.
- Check that you can be booked in the global distribution systems, and what that connection costs you each year.
- Weigh each fee against the room nights, as above, and leave the programmes that don't pay their way.
- Read the contract before you sign. D-EDGE warns that cancelling a contract once signed is not advisable: the consortium may advise its agencies not to book you.
Keeping consortia rates in step with your prices
A dynamic rate, a set share off your public rate, rises and falls with your prices, which is why D-EDGE advises it. A fixed rate for the year can sit above your public price on quiet nights and far below it on busy ones, unless blackout dates cover them.
- Check that each consortia rate is loaded with the right code, room types and extras before the programme's year begins.
- Make sure the same rate isn't reaching the public through a booking site, which breaks the programme's terms and undercuts your own website.
- Count each programme's bookings as a source of their own in your figures, so you can see what each brings.
