Industry firsts and seconds

A neck-and-neck race to the finish, where winner takes all!

What's all this about? The Grand National. The 100 metre dash at the Olympics. The Oxford and Cambridge boat race?

Not at all – just the usual scrap between two of the GDSs to get their announcement about a new product out first.

The latest battle began yesterday morning at 10.05, when the Texas-based Sabre Travel Network revealed it has developed a tool for agents to track hotel commissions.

Reasonably interesting development – very worthy tool, etc.

But, hey presto, just 12 minutes later bitter rival Amadeus fires off an email with news of a tool for agents to track hotel commissions – developed by the same company as the one behind Sabre’s effort, Worldwide Payment Systems.

To add to the confusion, Amadeus says: “After an extensive search, Amadeus worked with Worldwide Payment Systems to develop the industry’s first, effective commission tracking solution.”

An industry first? The Sabre tool is not "effective"? We should be told…

Kevin May, editor, Travolution