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Special Report: GDS evolves to widen appeal

Travelport rebrands its divisions ahead of a planned flotation. Lee Hayhurst reports

Travelport this week announced plans to rebrand its internal operations into two new divisions in a move clearly intended to bolster its plans to go public.

The operator’s Worldspan and Galileo global distribution systems will now be part of its new Travel Commerce Platform division, while a new Technology Services arm will handle its IT services for airlines.

Last week, Atlanta-based Travelport signalled its renewed confidence in the money markets by announcing its intention to float.

This followed four years of speculation that Travelport would revive plans for an IPO after it pulled out of a proposed public offering in February 2010 that would have seen it float on the London Stock Exchange.

In the meantime, however, its great rivals stole a march; Amadeus went public on the Spanish stock exchange in 2010, while Sabre announced its IPO plans in April, valuing the firm at $3.93 billion.

Travelport’s announcement of its internal rebranding alluded to how all the GDSs that underpin the sector strive to shed a caricature – often unfairly levelled – that they are legacy dinosaurs.

In this respect Travelport, the 
UK market leader, due in part 
to its link with British Airways which founded the Galileo system in 1976, scored a significant coup this year by welcoming Ryanair back.

However, all three major GDSs – also including Amadeus, the European market leader, and Sabre Travel Holdings, the number one in the US – are striving to modernise their businesses.

In a fiercely competitive sector, each makes their case as to why they are further down that road than their rivals.

All three have low-cost carriers firmly in their sights via their ‘air merchandising’ offerings, with Ryanair expected to appear on at least one other GDS before the end of the year.

All three understand the need to expand their revenue streams away from the core job of air fare distribution into hotel rooms, car hire and more.

All three would like to be seen as forward-thinking technology innovators capable of working with agents and suppliers in the digital distribution age.

And finally, all three understand the potential threats from outside their traditional sphere, among them Iata’s New Distribution Capability which, even before it is a reality, has focused minds.

Announcing this week’s rebrand, Travelport president and chief executive Gordon Wilson said: “We’ve evolved the way we both distribute content for our travel provider customers and made it more easily accessible and bookable by our travel agency customers.

“We have invested in, and developed our business to address the changing needs of the travel distribution chain, which we are now articulating through our new, and more up-to-date, brand proposition that clearly explains what we offer our customers.”

So out go references to ‘GDS’. For Travelport’s newly redefined Travel Commerce Platform, read Sabre’s Travel Marketplace, or what Amadeus refers to as its Selling Platform.

Essentially, all are trying to do the same thing: aggregate as much content as possible, but enable that to be queried in an efficient way so travel professionals can sell it through a single system.

We can expect more announcements from all three about new deals to bring in more content bookable by agents and integrated into their normal workflows.

With a future under public scrutiny, it’s imperative all three GDSs present potential investors with a compelling story.

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