A man has been admitted to large hospital, he is lying on the surgery bed with knives stabbed in his back. The doctor and the nurse enter. The doctor requests for the reports to be reached to him by evening. He sees the man lying and asks what happened to him? The nurse casually replies that this man was another victim to online booking sites. The doctor begins to remove one knife at a time. The first stab was when the man tried to book an airline ticket which got cancelled instead of refunding the ticket they stabbed him. The second stab was when he booked a four star room, not a single star was to be seen, it was a windowless room. The third stab was when the man tried booking a bus, which was delayed by three hours. The doctor questions the man," why do you people get betrayed in this manner time and again?" the man replies, "there is no other option." The doctor takes out his phone and shows a one stop booking application where one can book flights, hotels and buses. The doctor says, " A trusted site, no cheating involved".
The advertisement ends with the tagline, "better safe than sorry."
This Online booking application ad was aired about a year ago. Any guesses to which booking portal this advertisement was associated to? It is Goibibo.com
The ad was a simple portrayal of customers facing problems with online booking. Several people find it a skeptical method to book a stay online. Most prefer the traditional method of booking through an agent if they are not sure about the quality of the rooms and services. The reason being, If there are any cases of being cheated the claims can be handled much easily.
This situation was about two or three years ago when online booking engines were newly introduced and the system behind booking engines were not so smooth.
With rampant software development in this field booking engines have now picked up and are working more smoothly. Now business men/corporate's, leisure travelers and agents book tickets and rooms online. With several small and start up companies offering easy to use booking engines. Hotels are now buying ready made or tailor made engines then customizing it to their needs and using it. In fact, several hotels digitally market their services.
Booking Engines generally integrate with property management systems. In the hospitality industry a property management system also known as a PMS is a comprehensive software application used to cover some basic objectives such as coordinating the operational functions of front office, sales and planning etc. Automate hotel functions like guest bookings, guest details, online reservations, point of sale, telephone, accounts receivable, sales and marketing, banquets, food and beverage costing, materials management, HR and payroll, maintenance management, quality management and other amenities. Hotel property management systems may interface with central reservation systems and revenue or yield management systems, front office, back office, point of sale, door-locking, housekeeping optimization, pay-TV, energy management, payment card authorization and channel management systems.
Global distribution systems (GDS) is a network operated by a company that enables automated transactions between Third-parties and booking agents in order to provide provision travel related services to the end consumers. A GDS can link services, rates and bookings consolidating products and services across all three travel sectors: i.e., airline reservations, hotel reservations, car rentals, and activities. A GDS will have real-time link to the vendors database. For example, when a travel agency requests a reservation on the service of a particular airline, the GDS system routes the request to the appropriate airline computer reservations system. This enables a travel agent with a connection to a single GDS to choose and book various flights, hotels, activities and associated services on all the vendors in the world who are part of that GDS.
With the integration of these two main systems a customer as well as the travel desks benefit, as these are smoother and smarter. With the progress of technology, Online booking sites are built to work on various platforms such as website, phones and tablets with responsive websites.
Customers and travel agents now find this a hazel free method to book a stay.
So good bye to stabs, for software development has now made booking of flights, hotels, buses easy and trust worthy.
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