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The JSE listed Gooderson Leisure Corporation has put all its properties onto its own multi global distribution system (GDS) services company serving a massive global network of travel agents Reservhotels providing access to all four booking systems, that of Galileo, Amadeus, Wordspan and Sabre. All GDS codes can be found on their Website at www.goodersonleisure.co.za.
“With the majority of bookings being predominantly made online it is key for Gooderson Leisure, being in this highly competitive tourism industry, to be globally connected with their own system and optimise the use of technology which is a top priority of the present day market. Given that the current exchange rate and the hunger for more unusual destinations present significant opportunities to grow the South African tourism market, we felt that it was important for Gooderson Leisure to increase its international presence and accessibility,” explained CEO, Gavin Castleman.
Connecting to Amadeus ensures that a resort is available to hundreds of thousands of travel professionals who generate millions of room nights per year. According to flightafrica, Amadeus averages 529 million bookings, sells seats on 145 airlines and records $66 billion in global travel sales in a year.
Gooderson Leisure Sales and Marketing General Manager, Gail Westphal explained that GDS service providers such as Amadeus are a fundamental part of the travel supply chain and are critical to travel agents’ sourcing travel products online.
As a global platform, it not only provides an estimated 800 000 travel agents with information about travel options and packages, but also enables them to shop around and compare product and reservation options. It notifies agents of special rates, fares, and travel packages and enables them to book these in real time for their clients.
Westphal says that independent travel agents, online agents and travel agencies are now using increasingly more sophisticated GDS systems to identify the best travel and accommodation options as well as the best products and rates for their clients. She said that it made sense for Gooderson Leisure to have their own connection to the global travel system, from a shared platform.
“ERes links the bookings directly to the GDS bookings to ensure that we are operating with real time bookings. The online market has grown significantly over the past four years and this is fast becoming the norm in our industry, where preferential partnerships are far easily maintained. It takes the hassle out of booking, replacing the early labour intensive manual systems,” ” she explains.
Gooderson Leisure, which was established in 1957, owns and manages a variety of leisure destinations across South Africa, offering holiday, conference and wedding offerings close to the beach, in the Drakensberg, in the bush and close to the Battlefields.
“Our mission is to add value and customer satisfaction through a consistent approach to service and operational excellence and to increase market share and our product offering in the tourism industry. We feel that, by linking our company directly to one of the foremost GDS service providers, we will achieve this,” Castleman says.