Monday, 27 October 2008 11:45 by
Admin
Before the Internet, travel agents used the GDS computer system to book rooms for their clients.
Look back on GDS = Global Distribution System post for review.
In
the early days of the Internet, a few Internet entrepreneurs decided to
create online travel agencies which accessed the GDS database to
provide room inventory to online travelers seeking to book
accommodations.
Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity and Orbitz are
examples of these online travel agencies. As these sites grew in
popularity, they decided to bypass the existing GDS room inventory and
sign direct contracts with properties. This new system is called the
IDS or Internet Distribution System.
Instead of the standard 10%
GDS commission paid to travel agents, these online travel agencies
raised commissions to 25% or more for a preferred, top of the page
listing on their web site. This new 25% commission phenomena is
commonly referred to as "Net Rate."
In our database, you will find a list of IDS web sites.
As
in many other areas of the Internet (see Google PPC ads) there has
sprung up a host of affiliate web sites that split commission with
their IDS partner. While the true list of all IDS websites is easily in
the thousands, we are mainly building this list for you to use when
doing a text search to discover what type of advertising opportunity
exists on a particular site.
As a property owner knowing the
complete list of affiliates has little value. If you do decide to pay a
net rate commission, comparing rates from amongst the major IDS sites
should be sufficient.
The main problem (besides giving away 25% or more of your room rate) is that these IDs sites want weekends in your peak season
as part of the inventory they can sell. As you can imagine, there are a
host of cat and mouse games of removing inventory offered to the IDS
after meeting their initial requirements to avoid giving away revenue
in your peak season.
One B&B owner suggested that travelers
often cut and paste the property name into Google and then go directly
to the property's own web site - thus bypassing the IDS commission. He
felt this lowered actual commissions paid to around 15%.