How GDS commissions are paid

An important element of optimising the development of bookings of a hotel on the GDS is the prompt and punctual payment of the commissions to the Agencies that make the bookings. Clearly, an agency that has previously made a booking with a certain hotel and received prompt payment of the commissions will be much more likely to make further bookings with that hotel in the future.

The problem is however, that there are many more agencies that make reservations at a given hotel via the GDS and are much more widely distributed on an international level in relation to the volume of reservation traffic that a single agency generates for a single hotel. This can lead to the hotel having to make individual payments to each agency for limited and varying amounts and into accounts in different Countries.

To avoid these complications ALESIA Distribution offers the hotels the TACSnet system (by Perot System), the global market leader for these commission management systems.

The system is integrated in the CRS of ALESIA Distribution.

Procedure

• On the first day of each month the (CRS) platform automatically sends a report of the reservations and commissions to TACSnet. 
   
• Over the next few days the hotel, using its unique data (login and password), connects to the TACSnet system and verifies that the indicated bookings effectively correspond to the actual guest stays at the hotel (reconciliation). The hotel has 20 days to modify any incorrect data. 
   
• After 23-24 days, TACSnet sends out the general report of commissions both of the agencies and of ALESIA Distribution. 
   
• At this point the hotel makes a single payment and TACSnet automatically takes care of redistributing the commissions amongst the individual Travel Agencies and ALESIA Distribution. 
   
• From the accounting point of view the hotel only needs to receive the commission invoices from ALESIA Distribution. For the Agencies the hotel just needs to prepare a self-billing invoice.

As you can see the system is very simple and efficient: a single monthly payment to cover all booking commissions!