Hospitality reservation system provider TravelClick claims the industry is seeing an all-time record use of Global Distribution Systems for booking hotels.
In its annual Global Travel Agent GDS study, TravelClick says over half (51%) of global travel agencies have reported using GDSs more often than compared to the past two years.
This finding is bolstered by learning that almost three out of ten agencies are now using GDS hotel shopping systems and nearly two-thirds are aware of promotional messages from hotels coming via the ad displays often contained within their desktop systems.
The figures from TravelClick come at an important time for the three major distribution networks after respectively making significant moves to expand beyond their traditional flight search and booking capabilities in recent years.
TravelClick senior industry analyst, John Hach, says:
"This study correlates with our business intelligence projections that 2015 will be a record year for GDS hotel bookings.
"The growth reinforces the importance for hoteliers to pay extra attention to the GDS, especially as it is one of the highest average daily rate channels for maximizing revenue per available room (RevPAR)."
In terms of rates, a massive 96% of agencies in the study said it was important that the GDSs should offer parity on hotel properties, with over half stating they would book a property elsewhere if a hotel did not offer its best rate with the distribution networks.
Despite the growing use of the GDSs to book hotel stays, agencies said they would book in another channel if they found the best rest elsewhere.
NB:Hotel booking image via Shutterstock.