GDS full form: what a global distribution system means for a hotel

Travelport describes a GDS as the system connecting travel suppliers, such as airlines, hotels and car hire firms, with travel sellers, such as travel agencies, booking sites and travel management companies, the firms that arrange work trips for other companies. Two of the main three were started by airlines: Sabre by American Airlines with IBM, and Amadeus by a group of European airlines.

A travel agent searches the GDS for a town and dates, sees the hotels on it with their rooms, rates and policies, and books one for a client. Hospitality Net's explainer notes that a booking made through the GDS flows back into the hotel's own system, the way a booking-site booking reaches it through a channel manager.

• Amadeus, which also sells hotels the systems that connect them to it.
• Sabre, used by travel agencies around the world.
• Travelport, which Travelport says agencies use through its own booking tool, Travelport+.

• Travel agents booking a stay for a client, often with flights.
• Travel management companies, which run all of a company's travel and book through their own GDS screens.
• Business travellers whose company asks them to book only through its travel desk.
• Groups booked through an agency. Hospitality Net's explainer says GDS bookings often come from business travellers or group bookings made through professional intermediaries.

In India, many companies also book through booking sites' business tools. MakeMyTrip runs one, myBiz: its partner help says a hotel needs a GST number, agrees to upload GST invoices on the InGo-MMT extranet and asks its Business Manager to enable the myBiz agreement, after which it carries a myBiz Assured tag on MakeMyTrip.

So a GDS matters most to a hotel near offices, factories, an IT park, a port or an airport, or one that hosts foreign business guests, whose companies often book through a travel management company.

A hotel isn't put on a GDS by signing up on a website. Its rooms and rates reach the GDS through a system connected to it, in one of three ways:

• Through a central reservation system, or CRS. Amadeus says a hotel with a CRS can connect it directly to its GDS.
• Through a representation company, for a hotel without a CRS. Amadeus says its LinkHotel service is designed for hotels without a CRS, or that can't support a direct GDS connection, and connects them to Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport.
• Through your channel manager or property management system, if it offers a GDS connection. Ask yours whether it does, and through whom.

1. 1Ask your channel manager or PMS whether it can connect you to the GDSs, and through which company.
2. 2Ask that company which GDSs you will appear on, and how your rooms, rates and policies will look to a travel agent.
3. 3Ask what you pay: a monthly charge, a charge for each booking, or both, and how travel agents' commission is paid.
4. 4Load your rates, including any company rates you have agreed, and make a test booking to check it arrives in your own system.
5. 5Tell the companies and travel agents who already send you guests that they can now book you on the GDS.

Amadeus's pages for hotels give no prices: the cost depends on the company that connects you. Booking.com, writing about the companies that connect hotels to it, says there are usually two ways to pay such a provider, by the month or by the number of transactions, and that some offer a trial.

• The connection: a monthly charge, a charge per booking, or both.
• The travel agent's commission, if your rates pay one, and how it reaches the agent.
• Joining travel agency groups' and companies' hotel programmes, which Amadeus's LinkHotel page says it helps hotels apply to.
• Your own time: rates on the GDS must be kept up to date like any other channel's.

• The public rate: your normal price for the night, which any travel agent can book.
• Company rates: a price agreed with one company, which only its travel bookers are given. OneHorizyn's page on corporate rates explains how they are agreed.
• Commissionable or net rates: a rate on which you pay the travel agent a commission, or a net rate the agent adds a margin to. The page on net rates explains the difference.
• Policies: the cancellation rules, what the rate includes and its taxes, which a travel agent reads before booking.

Keep the GDS rates in line with your other channels. A travel agent who sees your room cheaper on a booking site may book it there, and a company that finds its agreed rate above your public price on the day will ask why.

• Companies or travel agents ask whether you are on the GDS.
• Companies near you send staff on work trips and book through a travel management company.
• Foreign business guests come to your town.
• Your weekday nights have empty rooms that business guests could fill.
• Someone at the hotel can keep the GDS rates and company rates up to date.

For a leisure hotel, a homestay or a resort whose guests book for themselves, the booking sites, your own website and the travel agents you deal with directly will usually matter more. Before you pay for a connection, ask the companies and agents who already send you guests how they book.