Hotel bookings should be managed in the same way as airlines manage their, David Jones, executive vice president of Amadeus, told the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) in Barcelona.
Airlines used IT systems to manage the whole process from their schedules and inventory through the bookings and reservations to the departure.
Hotels should use technology to do something similar with a central hotel inventory and a hotel CRS which were similar to the first two airline processes and a check-in/check out process which was similar to an airline departure process.
He told more than 200 delegates that currently the hotel distribution system lacked efficiency, was very complex and fragmented and was expensive to maintain. Much of it was still done manually.
There were numerous channels, both direct and indirect, ranging from the telephone through the hotel's website to the various on- and offline agencies and travel management companies.
“Imagine every airplane having its own systems and the captain in charge of distribution,” Mr Jones said.
The key issues for hotels were their pricing, their rate management and the availability of their rooms. But the 2005 KPMG Global Hotel Distribution Survey showed there was a large difference in prices across channels.
Globally the prices varied by 30% but in the UK, the figure rose to 38%, in Western Europe it was 29% and in Eastern Europe 26%.
Mr Jones said the same survey also showed that getting the best price was difficult with online agencies offering it 36% of the time, TMCs 22% and the hotels website 19%. Hotels had therefore to service their guests across all channels.
Hotels needed an accurate, single repository of their rates and availability to which all channels had access. This would save time and money and the need for “endless synchronisation.”