Tech

With its new series “Travel Tech Inside,” DIGITRIPS Tech, the tech backbone of the DIGITRIPS group, aims to make the technologies that enable searching, connecting, distributing and selling travel more accessible. The objective: explain simply what lies behind a booking, without multiplying acronyms — and to reaffirm a belief: technological complexity should stay in the background so that the experience itself remains simple.

This pedagogy does not stop at this article: DIGITRIPS Tech is applying the same explanatory effort on the blog digitrips.com, where every topic addressed here is revisited and explored in depth through dedicated content.

Dozens of players and data to connect

What kind of players lie behind a search that takes only a few seconds on a booking site? Hotels, chains, bed banks (also called bed banks, those wholesalers who pool hotel stock), tour operators, online agencies, TMCs, booking platforms and other distributors must move large volumes of data: availability, rates, cancellation terms, descriptions, visual content, or payment rules.

Historically, these exchanges relied on well-known professional tools: the GDS (Global Distribution System), which centralizes the offering for agencies; the channel manager, which synchronizes a hotel’s rates and availabilities across all its sales channels; or the PMS, the management software used at the hotel reception. Travel tech today complements or modernizes these traditional building blocks rather than replacing them.

With this diversity of players, there is also a multiplication of content sources. A distributor can now combine direct hotel contracts, several third-party providers (notably bed banks) and its own commercial agreements. Each connection has its own technical and contractual rules, and must be integrated, maintained and steered over time.

See the guide to hotel distribution by DIGITRIPS.

Accessing the offer is no longer enough

The challenge is therefore no longer merely to access the offer: it must be made truly usable. How to aggregate contents, harmonize data, limit duplicates, compare rates, and apply the right distribution rules? That is the real work, often invisible.

What is at stake for hoteliers? It is different, but equally strategic: being able to distribute more broadly their negotiated contracts, without multiplying technical connections or losing control over their commercial terms.

These operations never appear on the end-user side. Yet they play a direct role in the speed of a search, the relevance of results, price competitiveness, and the reliability of the booking. Travel tech is therefore not merely a technical layer: it has become the indispensable infrastructure for modern travel distribution.

DIGITRIPS Tech links the different links in the travel distribution chain, with a simple role: to facilitate the flow of inventory between suppliers, producers, and distributors through connectors, tools developed by the Group’s teams.

What is a connector in travel distribution? A connector is a technological solution that enables the systems of suppliers and distributors to communicate with one another — a kind of next-generation GDS, but designed to talk also with channel managers, the PMS, and direct contracts. The connector ties availabilities, rates and bookings together, while harmonizing data, to make a complex offer directly exploitable by travel professionals.

The group relies on a dual culture to build its connectors: historically a travel trader, DIGITRIPS, through DIGITRIPS Tech (formerly Koedia) also develops its own distribution technologies. This hybrid model allows approaching travel tech from concrete problems: how to faster integrate new content sources? How to enrich a hotel inventory? How to better manage distributed content while preserving margin?

Connecting travel content sources

A crucial step is to simplify access to the different travel content sources (air, land). A centralized integration enables distributors to connect to multiple providers without multiplying technical developments, often time- and resource-intensive. This approach also facilitates linking hoteliers who want to distribute their rates with professionals seeking new content.

Orchestrating distribution rules

Connecting sources is not enough: you must decide which content to display, under what rules, and for which markets. Orchestration allows you to govern the selection of providers, display priorities, commercial rules or distribution conditions. The technology becomes a control tool, not merely a means to access more offers.

Valuing available content

Connectivity must finally serve a business objective. An enriched, better-structured inventory that is easier to steer helps distributors strengthen the relevance of their offer: valorize negotiated contracts, broaden sales channels, adapt the distribution model to each company’s objectives. The goal is not to add another layer of technology, but to reduce the visible complexity for users.

Some simple landmarks to help you navigate beyond jargon — and which are developed in more detail on the blog digitrips.com:

• GDS: the historical system that centralizes hotel and air offerings for travel agencies.

• Channel manager: the tool that real-time synchronizes an hotel’s rates and availabilities across all its sales channels.

• PMS: the software used at reception to manage rooms, arrivals and departures.

• Bed bank (bed bank): a wholesaler that buys hotel stock in volume to resell to distributors.

• Direct contract: a commercial agreement negotiated directly between a distributor and a hotel, with no intermediary.

• Connector: the technology that links all these systems together and harmonizes their data and travel content.

Combining bed banks and direct contracts

For travel distributors, centralizing multiple sources allows expanding the available offering without managing each connection separately. A hotel aggregation platform can bring together bed banks and direct contracts within the same environment.

These two models complement each other more than they oppose. Bed banks provide broad, quickly accessible coverage. Direct contracts offer greater control over rates, commercial terms, and the relationship with hotel partners. A hybrid approach enables combining their advantages according to markets, destinations, and the objectives of each company.

Read the article: bed bank or direct contract, which hotel distribution strategy should you choose?

TravelPlugz: aggregating and steering all your suppliers

TravelPlugz centralizes content derived from the client’s contracts with its third-party suppliers (DMCs, Wholesalers, Bedbanks, etc.) and thus provides access to a broad and constantly updated inventory:

• Aggregate all housing contracts of distributors

• Optimize prices and the relevance of the offering

• Enrich distribution platforms.

A tool designed to master and structure a multitude of feeds.

Hotel Direct Access: exploiting direct contracts in real time

Hotel Direct Access focuses on direct contracts negotiated by the distributor with hotel chains or independents: secure access to negotiated rates, real-time availabilities, centralized stock management… A major competitive advantage for players with exclusive and differentiating contracts.

Complementary, these two solutions offer an aggregation power and full control of direct contracts, for richer content, greater relevance, and above all a complete price comparison across providers.

The members of the DIGITRIPS Tech team are at your disposal to accompany you. You can contact them at the following email address: [email protected].

To learn more about the DIGITRIPS group and its solutions, visit our site www.digitrips.com