Travelink

has incorporated the Amadeus
global distribution system (GDS) into its products.  The move follows the company’s announcement in November last year that it had made no-frills carriers bookable within the system and means operators can now access the widest possible range of fares - from flights operated by tour operators through to no-frill carriers and GDS-listed scheduled carriers.
Availability and prices from all these sources are displayed on a single screen, and all bookings are made entirely within the Travelink system.

“The quality and speed of the Travelink development as well as the level of integration offered is certainly impressive,” said Peter Cacioppo, director of sales at Amadeus UK.  “We are confident that this development will greatly benefit our mutual customers.”

Travelink managing director David Jones said the face of leisure travel in the UK was changing quickly.  “Gone are the days of a ‘one package fits all’ approach and operators who persist in this are printing their own redundancy slips,” he said.  “Consumers want flexibility and choice, and that’s what this development helps us provide.”

Travelink enables tour operators and their travel agency customers to book content regardless of how they access the system - on Viewdata, through call centres or online.  It has also recently developed technology to let operators sell different components of a holiday through all existing sales channels, including Viewdata, and to vary the price of each component according to the channel.This gives operators pricing flexibility and lets them drive business through the most profitable channels.  It also lets travellers tailor their holidays according to their own specifications.

“If I want to book my holiday online and fly on a given airline so I can use my frequent flyer miles, an operator like Turquoise will allow me to do so,” Jones said.  It’s called customer choice, and tour operators are now using technology to deliver it.”
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