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Is Viewdata the Problem?
29 April 2002

At a recent Advantage Travel Centres conference in Valencia, Jeanne Lally, Thomson Holidays Sales Manager, suggested that antiquated systems prevent operators from responding to market demands. She said: “That would be one of the things I would like to change – to have a tool that allows us to manipulate durations. But we can’t do it with viewdata.” I disagree, viewdata is not the problem. It is perfectly capable of handling varying durations or any other style of booking. 

The problem is the major tour operator reservation systems that sit behind viewdata, controlling the booking processes. These are designed to work supremely well at handling fixed duration package holidays, because that is traditionally where the real volume has been. However, anything is possible in technology if you spend enough money. If there was sufficient return on investment, Thomson Holidays and the others could easily justify re-engineering their systems. 

However, in reality I believe this is not a systems issue but a contracting one. The volume operators commit to purchasing rooms regardless of whether they sell them or not (unless they already own the hotel). They then aim to achieve the high utilisation necessary to cover costs and make healthy profits by never allowing a room to sit empty. Of course, this works very well with fixed durations. All the holiday bookings line-up back to back with no gaps. Charter airline schedules can be organised to keep the aircraft full. Smaller airports can staff-up for the regular once or twice weekly arrival/departure days. All very convenient.

Now, imagine they start offering flexible durations. There will undoubtedly be unsold rooms on days when holiday booking dates did not quite match-up back to back. Unlike smaller tour operators who contract bed stock on a release back basis, these empty rooms are already paid for and will represent a real loss rather than just a missed profit opportunity. Flight-wise, organising more frequent departures to cope with flexible durations would lower aircraft utilisation. Empty seats cost money. Flexible holidays could be an expensive business.

However, the world is moving on. Holidaymakers are becoming more sophisticated. They do not want to be dictated to. If they do not like the departure days on offer, they can buy low-cost flights from airlines that offer daily departures. They can contact hoteliers direct on the Internet and book the holiday that suits them.

The fixed duration package holiday may well be a dying breed, but if you work for a tour operator that can offer nothing different, don’t blame technological limitations for the lack of flexibility. It is just a question of investment. Either your company can grasp the nettle and change the basis on which it contracts and sells its inventory, investing in the systems to support this, or it can simply do nothing. Grasping the nettle may reduce profits as inventory utilisation goes down and systems expenditure goes up. Doing nothing risks losing market share. Your choice!

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