Type of project: GDS CONTENT OPTIMIZATION
Ensuring High Quality GDS content for Belmond’s Luxury Hotel Portfolio
ABOUT THE CLIENT
Belmond operates a diverse global portfolio of 45 luxury hotels, trains and river cruises, promising extraordinary vacations in exotic destinations. H2c’s cooperation with Belmond began in 2014, when the former Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. was renamed Belmond. H2c assisted Belmond with quality assurance services during and after the rebranding process.
CLIENTS’ OPINION
h2c has been instrumental in assisting us in optimizing our GDS return and we were able to identify some key CRS issues that needed to be addressed immediately. We were 100% satisfied with the services rendered and would highly recommend h2c to other hoteliers.
Tanja Headford-Arias, Corporate Revenue Manager
OBJECTIVE
Belmond requested h2c to audit their GDS content and identify areas for improvement. The main objective was to optimize the hotels’ GDS presentation, and thereby increase visibility for travel agencies using the major GDSs, namely Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport (Galileo and Worldspan).
CHALLENGES
- Belmond does not have access to travel agency GDS screens. Therefore, missing or incorrect hotel information is only noticed when booking/reservation issues arise.
- Involvement of different technology providers (CRS, GDS) has complicated error identification.
- Technical GDS content limitations (e.g., maximal character length) needs to be taken into consideration when implementing content.
WORK
- GDS Content Checks per hotel were conducted, including GDS search criteria, critical booking criteria, hotel descriptions, room / rate names and descriptions.
- Recommendations for GDS content alignments in consultation with hotel revenue managers were provided.
- H2c assisted with content implementations, which included communicating these to CRS and GDS providers.
- Post implementation, h2c conducted a final check of the updated GDS displays.
- A final project status report including a guideline for future implementations was submitted to Belmond.
RESULTS
- Increased travel agent visibility of Belmond properties throughout the GDSs.
- Improved hotel information per property (e.g., optimized room and rate names/descriptions, clarifying inclusions and booking conditions) has made the travel agents’ search processes more efficient.
- Increased content marketing awareness among Belmond employees in general and the need for a correct GDS set up in Belmond’s CRS in particular.
- Advanced skill set of Belmond employees, resulting in more efficient work processes.
