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Travel technology glossary

The vocabulary of travel distribution, defined the way a practitioner would explain it rather than the way a brochure would.

A

Aggregator
A company that integrates many hotel or travel suppliers and re-exposes their combined inventory through a single API, so that a buyer integrates once instead of many times.See also: Bedbank, Supplier
Allotment
A block of rooms or seats a supplier commits to a buyer for a period. Sales draw the allotment down, and unsold inventory is returned at a release date.See also: Release period, Stop-sell

B

Bedbank
A wholesaler that contracts hotel rooms at net rates and distributes them to travel sellers, typically B2B only.See also: Net rate, Aggregator
Board basis
What meals a hotel rate includes: room only, bed and breakfast, half board, full board or all-inclusive.See also: Rate plan
Booking engine
The system that carries a traveller from search through selection, passenger data, payment and supplier confirmation to a voucher.See also: Look-to-book

C

Cancellation policy
The schedule of penalties that apply as a booking approaches arrival. A well-modelled policy is a list of absolute deadlines and amounts, not a sentence of prose.See also: Refundable rate
Channel manager
Software that keeps a hotel's rates and availability synchronised across the channels it sells through.See also: Rate parity
Commission model
A rate on which the seller is paid a percentage by the supplier, as opposed to a net rate the seller marks up itself.See also: Net rate, Markup

D

DMC
Destination management company. A local operator that contracts ground product (hotels, transfers, tours, guides) in its destination and sells it to inbound buyers.See also: Tour operator

G

GDS
Global distribution system. The legacy networks (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) through which air and some hotel inventory is distributed to agents.See also: NDC

H

Hotel mapping
Resolving records for the same physical property arriving from different suppliers under different names, ids and coordinates into one unified property.See also: Room mapping, Deduplication

I

Idempotency key
A client-supplied identifier on a state-changing request. Replaying the request with the same key returns the original result instead of performing the action twice.See also: Booking engine

L

Look-to-book
The ratio of searches to bookings. It drives infrastructure cost, and suppliers watch it because searches cost them money too.See also: Booking engine

M

Markup
The amount added to a supplier's net rate to produce the selling price.See also: Net rate, Pricing engine
Multi-tenancy
One deployment serving many isolated customers, each with its own data, configuration, branding and credentials.See also: White label

N

NDC
New Distribution Capability. An IATA standard letting airlines distribute richer, more personalised offers directly rather than through legacy GDS fare structures.See also: GDS
Net rate
The confidential price a supplier charges a seller, before the seller adds its own margin.See also: Markup, Commission model

O

OTA
Online travel agency. A business that sells travel to consumers online, typically across multiple suppliers.See also: Aggregator

R

Rate parity
A contractual requirement that a hotel's rate is not undercut across channels. It constrains how a seller may discount.See also: Channel manager
Rate plan
A named commercial package attached to a room type: its board basis, cancellation terms, and any inclusions.See also: Board basis
Refundable rate
A rate that can be cancelled without full penalty before a stated deadline.See also: Cancellation policy
Release period
How long before arrival unsold allotment returns to the supplier.See also: Allotment
Room mapping
Resolving room types across suppliers for a property that has already been mapped. Harder than property mapping, because room descriptors are marketing text.See also: Hotel mapping

S

Stop-sell
An instruction that halts sales of a property, room type or date range immediately.See also: Allotment

T

Tour operator
A business that assembles multi-component packages and sells them under its own brand, taking the commercial risk on the package.See also: DMC

V

Voucher
The document a traveller presents at the supplier, carrying the booking reference and the terms that were purchased.See also: Booking engine

W

White label
Operating a platform under your own brand and domain while another company supplies the underlying technology.See also: Multi-tenancy