COMPUTERISED RESERVATION SYSTEMS (CRS) By George Otieno

Overview
Hoteliers, airline companies, car rental companies, cruise ships, travel agents, tour operators etc. deal with wide range of travel products and travellers originating from different parts of the world. Reaching these diverse types of clients requires the property owners and managers to convey information regarding their products features. The industry either deals directly with clients concerning business transactions or through clients agents. To efficiently and effectively reach its clients, property owners and managers are continuously embracing different ways through which they can communicate their product availability to clients. They do this through use of various distribution channels in existence. Existing Electronic Distribution Channels The industry is shifting from the traditional product distribution channels that consisted of the middlemen (wholesalers, retailers etc. who include traditional travel agents) who ensured that products reach individual consumers. Advances in technology and embracing use of computers applications systems by the tourism industry has proven useful for business operation. Today, the tourism industry is employing electronic distribution systems (EDS) or channels to ensure that travel, tourism and hospitality products are available for individual consumption by the clients. These include global distribution systems, internet distribution systems, distribution service providers (DSPs), third party websites or online travel agents (OTAs) e.g. Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline.com, Hotel site etc.; faxes, e-mails, smart phones, hotel directories, information packages etc. Other EDS include e-commerce and call centres (with Call Center Reservation and Support Services) for hotels without PMS. Evolution of EDS The evolution of the EDS can be traced in three phases: development of airline reservations systems (ARS), development of GDS and advent of OTA Development of ARS - Electronic distribution channels began way back in the 1940s with the development of central reservation systems (CRS) by both domestic and international airlines in the US. - In 1946, the first kind of GDS system: experimental electromechanical Reservisor was introduced by the American airline (AA). This was later improved to an automated Airline Reservation System (ARS) in the 1950s. - American Airlines (CEO C. R. Smith) and IBM developed the system which later gave birth to a joint venture program known as the Semi-Automatic Business Research

Environment (SABRE) which was launched in 1960. This new development made purchasing airline tickets so easy that soon a number of other airlines had developed similar technology of their own. - By the 1970s, popularity of the airline reservation system reached outside of individual carriers, and travel agents began using the software as well. GDS Emergence - Several GDS systems then came into existence operated by different airlines. For instance, Delta Air Lines launched the Delta Automated Travel Account System (DATAS) in 1968; Videcom international with British Airways, British Caledonian and CCL launched Travicom in 1976 which was later changed to Galileo. - Air France and West Germany's Lufthansa launched Amadeus Global Travel Distribution in the early 1990s. - Worldspan was also launched in early 1990s by affiliates of Delta Air Lines, Inc., Northwest Airlines, and TWA. - The four GDSes (SABRE, Galileo, Amadeus and Worldspan) were then operated as a joint venture system. Other systems that were developed along the way include Apollo, Abacus, PARS, Travelsky, Patheo, KIU and Shares. - Apollo was merged with Galileo to form Galileo International. In 2007, Galileo International was merged with Worldspan to form Travelport. Emergence of OTAs - In the past, a Global Distribution Systems were used primarily by those in the travel industry. Nowadays, with the advent of the Internet and online booking portals, internet savvy travelers are able to use these systems when booking travel over the Web. - The advent and growth of Internet Distribution Systems (IDS) such as third party websites e.g. Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline.com etc. has made managing travel, tourism and hospitality products rates and inventory online more complex and such sites are perceived to pose threats to the existence of travel agents. This is because they provide consumers with 24-hours access and are often more affordable than even the hotel websites themselves. How CRS operates Booking/Reservation Systems Computers are often used to book (reserve) air flights, seats in the cinema, rooms in hotels, tables in restaurants etc. Sometimes, individuals make use of call centres or mobile phones to make reservations via SMS or even through social platforms such as Facebook. A reservationist in all the cases is often confronted with a challenge of limited travel product (airline seats, hotel rooms etc.) and surplus of demand in some cases. It is very important that any booking system prevents the same item being booked twice (double booking). How Booking/Reservation Systems Work The nature of the booking process and procedure depend on the travel product on offer and the technology being employed by the booking party. In a single cinema for instance, the booking

process may be characterized by individuals queuing up to buy tickets at the front door and in such a case the reservation system may be very simple. In such a case, the reservationist may use a piece of paper and tick off seats as they are reserved. Same scenario would apply to individuals booking bus seats. However, most booking systems are much more complex than this. A typical system must cope with booking requests from many different sources, all arriving at the same time. For instance, flights may be booked by clients online, by travel agents in dozens of different offices, by business itself etc. Therefore, how do reservation systems manage all these booking requests without making any double booking? This is possible because all booking systems are real-time. A real time system is one in where every input is processed immediately, so that the resulting output is ready before the next input is processed. In the case of a booking system: a) The inputs are booking requests b) The processing involves checking if bookings are possible, and if so making the bookings. c) The outputs are the booking confirmations/rejections. Because booking/reservation systems operate on real-time, when a booking request arrives, the previous booking has already been fully processed. This is what prevents double-booking. Example Two people, Simon based in Mombasa and Peter based in Kisumu are using KQs website to try and book seats on a KQ Nairobi to Amsterdam Monday morning flight. Both Simon and Peter are trying to book seat No. 38C at the same time. What would happen? Who would book the seat given that the seat was not reserved before by anybody? NB: Even though the booking requests are made at the same time, one request will be received by the airlines computer just before the other since reservation requests come into the system through a queue. This is what happens: a) Input: Please reserve seat 38C b) Process: Has seat 38C already been booked? Noso book it. c) Output: Booking confirmed for seat 38C d) Input: Please reserve seat 38C. e) Process: Has seat 38C already been booked? Yes! f) Output: Booking rejected. This clearly shows that the first queued reservation request is fully processes by the system before embarking on the next reservation request on the queue thus prevents seat 38C from double-booking