Every year the faithful gather in Cologne for the annual German Travel Industry lovefest known as the FVW Kongress, this years' highlight of the two day event for many was the debate from two of the leading protagonists.

Kevin Mitchell of the BTC- Business Travel Coalition the pressure group, and Jim Davidson CEO of Farelogix the preferred industry supplier of Direct Connect solutions.

And the winner is… a draw, with a nod to Jim Davidson.

Upfront this writer is a firm believer that the Direct Connect is inevitable. The fragmentation of the airline supply driven by Low Cost Carriers and their success has changed the tenor of the ongoing debate on distribution. In truth it is no longer an either or debate. It is an AND debate. Something that sadly did not surface during the discussion

According to the audience members interviewed afterwards Davidson was clearly the debate winner. He spoke to the issues with passion and conviction and clearly a deep seated knowledge base. Some of the argumentation he proposed did not have as much meaning for the German audience where convention is highly regarded.

Mitchell read his presentation word by word from a script, according to audience members interviewed afterwards it almost appeared that he was reading only what a team of lawyers had sanitized. The audience would be more sympathetic to Mitchell's point of view but in speaking with several attendees after the session it was clear that his case was not advanced.

To read the essence of his script – BTC published last week the case against direct connect. businesstravelcoalition.com/press-room/2011_2/september-20---the-customer.html

The audience came away with a clear sense of inevitability of the Direct Connect story. So on the day that Google launched its Flight Search product – the debate was timely and pertinent.

In the afternoon a debate with several key players was held. Uwe Zobel (CIO of AER ticket, Alex von Koslowski (Vice President online Sales at Dertour), Head of Amadeus Germany Mark Tanz and Hans Joachim Klens CEO of Ypsilon.

The session was by all accounts a very friendly discussion. Sadly the panelists felt the discussion was short and not enough time for meat was allocated. The take away was clear;  direct connect will come, but at the moment the strong legacy business models remain in place. The lock in on the existing model caused by the GDS contracts both upstream into the airlines and downstream into the agency channels created a strong barrier to entry of independent players. However if the GDS do not display the additional services , than direct connect will be far more important than today. For many in the audience there is still no easy path to direct connect. The education process for the market remains a challenge for the direct connect proponents.

The ‘to capacity' audience who comprised all stakeholders of the market were skeptical and struggled to see the value in the Direct Connect model in Germany. Some of the comments from the audience including that of Gudrun Schoen CIO of DER Group wanted the airlines to rethink their strategies. She urged them not to abandon the legacy model. German leisure airline Condor the only Airline willing to speak during the session also stated a preference for the legacy based models.

However the Direct Connect concept was becoming better understood and the sense of inevitability was pervasive. No longer was the question of IF the Direct Connect model was coming but when. Earlier in the day, Lufthansa had laid out a clear vision of what it felt was appropriate for the new world order of distribution and in essence put the GDSs on notice that the existing legacy model was not supportable from the airline side given the lack of economic benefit and issues of functionality.

Returning to their places of business, many German players both in Leisure and Corporate will now be examining their strategies for 2012 and 2013 in anticipation of how to execute their relationships to airlines knowing full well that the legacy world is no longer such a nice and easy place.

Please note: This reporter did not attend the session due to engagements elsewhere but based this report on interviews with most of the participants and audience members.

You can read a lot more about this on the www.FVW.com website in English. On Day 2 the key theme was Direct Connect. Check out the blog from FVW. http://eblog.fvw.de/index.cfm/2011/9/14/fvw-Kongress-Ab-durch-die-Mitte

Timothy O Neil-Dunne, T2s Managing Partner, serves as the lead for the Airline, Aviation and Airport Practice.

T2Impact is a business development, technology and strategic consulting group focused on helping firms to accelerate their growth either in new geographies or with new products and services. Our name derives from the companys focus; accelerating time and getting from idea to impact quickly for its clients.

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