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According to research firm PhoCusWright the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) represent 1.1 Billion travel transaction world wide. The GDS is still a major contributor and hence of great importance to many players in the hospitality world.

GDS companies as Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport are representing over USD 268 Billion travel revenue in 2008. These are transactions made on airline tickets, hotels, car rental and other travel arrangements. The role of GDS is quite dominating in the travel world. It would be interesting to know how GDS distributions relate to the OTA contributions as they are making their move upwards.

In Europe alone, the GDS is responsible for one-fifth of the total travel revenue. It is expected that the GDS travel revenue is going to grow in the next couple of years. GDs powers millions of travel agencies in online transactions.

For a hotel owner is quite vital to manage this channel in the correct order. Revenue management systems can help and assist revenue managers to join this success channel and optimize rates and allotments in the channel. Not every channel management or revenue management program is able to assist you with this. Revpar guru is the only system in the market today which can assist in real time to manage all you online channel, including your GDS.

Hotel revenues were crushed in 2009 due to the economic downfall. Due to the anticipation by hoteliers and revenue managers, they have started to teach the market how we can lower our rates, or even react in a panic to discount our rates heavily. It will be hard to continue this rollercoaster in 2010, rate strategy is a key instrument to safeguard your Revpar.

To manage your Revpar you need to implement a revenue management system in order to cut the spiral of discounting and start to create value with your rates. Revenue management is the key to survival in this hectic market pushed by changing need of the travelers and the overwhelming offers that are currently in the market.

In order to manage your revenue, you need to anticipate on the need in the market, read your customer, understand him/ her and anticipate to influence your customer to buy your product.  This is the only way to maximize your revenue. It is not only the customer you need to understand, you have to look back at the past performance of your hotel, where are the highs and lows. Certainly not under estimate your competition, what are they doing. The booking pace, or booking window is nowadays very short, as the market believes this will create the best offer for their needs. This makes it very difficult to forecast your occupancy and anticipate on this.

Many hotels still measure their profitability by means of occupancy and ADR. However the Revpar is the true identifier of one’s success. There are software solutions in the market which can help you creating a significant Revpar for your company. It is analyzing your property’s availability and the need in the market. The automation process will optimize your revpar with this information.

The market analysis is nowadays very time consuming and continuously changing. A system which can think quicker and far more faster than a human, helps the revenue manager to analyze the market. Based on a set of variables and input it can even make decisions for you.

The system will provide all the information needed to let the manager make the right decision on the right time in order to draw the market to them. This is the way to put your Revpar high and significantly in the market, boosting occupancies and keep distribution costs low in order to improve the profit margin of the hotel.  No longer “go with the flow” to discount where ever and whenever you can, with knowing the result to your Revpar.