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GDS cos. chart course for certain change. (GDS Companies).

Article Excerpt
Global distribution system providers in 2002 were whipped into a tornado of industry controversy and change, but it was a storm into which they were aware they were navigating. While it remains to be seen how GDS companies will fare if the federal government, as expected, rewrites its GDS rules before they expire in January, all four major GDS providers already accept that their businesses are changing dramatically-so much so that they no longer consider the GDS moniker applicable.

While services and products that traditionally fall into the GDS or computer reservation system categories remain the biggest pieces of what these companies do, none of them is banking on a future in which travel is distributed through agents using so-called green screens. Even agents, they realize, are using the Internet instead. This doesn't necessarily mean the mainframe-based GDS technology will be ousted from the process--nearly all airline reservation systems, as well as the Big Three online agencies, still are backed by GDSs. It does mean, however, that GDS companies more than ever are going after the traveler, which puts them into competition with just about everybody in the industry.

In addition to the online agencies some of them run, all four GDSs have cornered at least some of the market for their travel management subscribers' needs when it comes to communicating with travelers. Just one example is Worldspan's announcement last week that it and Trondent Development Corp. partnered to connect Worldspan's My Trip and More Web-based itinerary solution with travelers' electronic calendars.

That GDSs need to diversify revenues is a no-brainer for some industry observers.

"With something like 85 percent of their revenues coming from airlines, GDSs are starting to say, 'Those customers don't have a lot of capital, so let's try to change things.' They just don't want to be that dependent on one industry that's in such serious trouble," said Danny Hood, president of WorldTravel BTI in Atlanta....