旅游生意:中间商难以出局_BEC初级作文

旅游生意:中间商难以出局

American Airlines, Air Canada and a few other carriers have tried to do so, by setting up a "direct connect" service, by which travel agents (physical or online) can bypass the GDSs and hook up to the airline's internal system to book both the basic flight and extras. To get any traction with this, the carriers are having to revert to paying agents commission-though less than they pay the GDSs. So far agents have mostly stuck with the GDSs: rebuilding their IT systems to make direct connections to airlines is expensive, and their contracts with GDSs may make it costly too.

美国航空、加拿大航空和其它一些航空公司已经尝试通过设立"直接连接"的服务，通过旅行社（实体店或网店）绕过全球分销系统，和该航空公司的内部系统相连，可以预定都基本航班和附加服务。为此，航空公司要重新支付佣金给旅行社—虽然这笔钱比付给GDS 的数额要少。但目前为止，代理商深陷全球分销系统之中：要重建他们的IT系统，和航空公司直接连接耗价巨大，但他们与全球分销系统所定的合同也价值不菲。

The search is on

搜索在继续

Hoping to solve these problems, the airlines' international association, IATA, is working on a grandly titled "new distribution capability". One of its main elements will be a common technical standard for direct-connect services. The GDSs could make use of such services, so as to sell the airlines' full range of extras as well as just flights. But perhaps of more interest to the airlines is that it would become easier for travel agents to build computer systems that deal directly with airlines. It would also become easier for search engines to scour the web for flights, assemble a list of options for travellers, then let them click through to the website of their chosen airline to complete the booking—again without a GDS's involvement.