...we are listening closely... everywhere! Broadly speaking, a hotel’s departed guest falls into one of three sentiment classes; delighted, content, unhappy. The reasons why guests sit at either end of the contentment spectrum are most likely due to one or more noteworthy experiences or discoveries having occurred during their stay. Historically, a hotelier has had little proximity into their departed guest’s sentiment related to their stay experience, unless of course that guest was sufficiently motivated to send a direct message to the GM, fill out a paper survey card before leaving, or respond verbally to the “How was your stay?” question at check-out. READ THE FULL ARTICLE.
...GDS providers once controlled over 80% of all air tickets. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) were the 800-pound gorillas of travel distribution. The four dominant GDS providers controlled over 80% of all air tickets. This market control allowed the GDSs to raise fees at will on a captive clientele of hoteliers and airlines dependent on the reservations they delivered as a calf depends on the cow. Today, they are in not quite the dominant position they once enjoyed for a variety of reasons. This article examines how they rose to a controlling position and then faded somewhat by looking at changes in some of the key relationships between travel suppliers (i.e.,
