THISTLE Hotels has struck a deal with the four main global distribution system suppliers that will allow agents to have direct access to the group’s inventory.
Thistle’s multi-million pound investment programme to upgrade its entire central reservation system means that full hotel descriptions can be viewed by agents on Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus and Worldspan with all rates displayed. Availability will be displayed in real-time and booking confirmations will be received in seconds.
Thistle Hotels agency sales director James Lee said: “Basically, agents will be selling rooms straight out of our inventory. They just need to get on their GDS, scroll for availability and then book. The GDSs will then be informed that the room has been booked.
“With some other hotel groups and with Thistle in the past, agents were viewing only an allocated number of rooms on the GDSs and not the whole inventory. Also, the information was only updated every 4hrs so it may not have been up to date,” he added.