Overview of Global Reservation Systems Tomorrow - Today

This is a subject that really interests me, primarily because it takes some of the new paradigms of web 2.0, social media, and user generated content and combines it with the underlying reservations model. Tina Fitch, CEO of EzRez even mentioned that bloggers were the pioneers in the space of aggregating information and providing user specific knowledge for their readers by digesting and re-interpreting information in a way that is attractive for their readers. The same holds true for the next generation of reservations systems. Ms. Fitch describes a system that aggregates data from a variety of systems and combines it with customer behaviour. This allows suppliers to better anticipate future market patterns by analyzing buying behaviour across the entire network. In order for this to be viable, the GRS would need have the following attributes:

Size - it must have a large amount of inventory.
Diversity - it must have a variety of inventory.

One area of opportunity is in the unified online profile that allows the same customer to use the same profile on a variety of supplier and OTA websites. The other opportunity is in collaboration between companies in order to allow data sharing across different areas. Is this realistic? Ms. Fitch suggests that some of this is happening now but is not yet broad enough to be all encompassing.

Will customers be intimidated by the “Big Brother” concept of having their profiles available in such an open manner? Ms. Fitch seems to think that travel is actually behind the ball on this concept. Many other e-commerce and social networking tools already utilize open profile technologies in order to support profile data. I think this is an issue of allowing customers to maintain and manage their own profile data. Like Facebook, for example, there are options for maintaining privacy, the issue is whether or not customers will adopt a profile sharing mechanism like the one being suggested. Travel, in general, however is not regarded as a particularly high trust industry. If it were, credit card processing companies would not regard it as a restricted business in the same category as gambling and adult entertainment. So consumer adoption of open profile sharing between travel companies even with opt out tools may see significant resistance.

It is a very nice notion but is it realistic to expect consumers to tell you all their preferences in order to help them make purchasing decisions. Perhaps if there is some integration and interaction with existing social networking tools, there may be some ways of getting that profile data in a way that is less intrusive and provides immediate value to the customer.

I originally posted this article on the Tips from the T-List @ PhoCusWright ITB 2008 blog available at http://itb2008.tipsfromthetlist.com.

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