The opening session of the Travel Distribution Summit in China held in Beijing this morning saw comparisons being drawn between GDSs and nuclear weapons and the contrasts between the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Confucius.

Image right: Charlie Li, organiser, opening the two-day conference in Beijing

It all started with the opening keynote by Ram Badrinathan, general manager-Asia Pacific for PhoCusWright, who in calling for a freeing of the travel market to allow technological innovation particularly in travel retailing in  China, quoted Gandhi, "I do not want my house to be walled on all sides and my windows to be stuffed, I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible but to refuse to be blown off my feet by any."

Ram said that while travel and tourism in China had grown by leaps and bounds in all aspects, there was still one aspect where it lagged behind other markets, in particular, India – innovation in travel retailing – and he attributed this to the closed GDS market which was restricting travel agents' ability to meet changing customer needs.

He said the GDS environment had evolved considerably globally to meet the changing needs of customers such as airlines and travel agents.

Follow the link to read the entire article in a new window: 

www.webintravel.com//news/gds-likened-to-nuclear-weapons-what-works-outside-may-not-work-in-china_604