It is a tool which allows you to distribute your rates and manage your inventory and bookings through a central point. In other words, you enter your rates and inventory in one system which then distributes it to the OTA's and ADS's you are contracted with. Similarly, bookings, modfications and cancellations as passed through this system to your PMS/CRS.

This depends on the technology you purchase or subscribe to. The ReservHotel Channel Manager is built using Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) and Open Travel Alliance API's making it easy to integrate with your PMS/CRS. However, if the technology in your environment does not allow for seamless connectivity, you can update rates and inventory via their extranet.

An Online Travel Agent or OTA as they are commonly referred to, is as the name suggests, an online booking site which offers accommodation or other travel related items like air travel or car hire. It is similar to the GDS except that where the GDS is only accessible to Travel Agents, OTA's are available to everyone who has access to the internet.

It is different to the GDS in that with the GDS, accommodation providers list on the GDS voluntarily, OTA's proactively seek participation from accommodation establishments so that they can have a pool of inventory to offer their audience. The more options/destinations they have on their site, the more chances they have of a booking being made through them and the more they process, the more commission they earn.

It is also different to the GDS in that you have direct access to their extranets. In other words you can load your rates, inventory and promotions directly on their systems.

Once contracted, you are required to load your rates, inventory and promotions onto their systems via an extranet. It does become a tedious process if you contract to more than 1 OTA and most organisations contract with at least 3; or if you practice dynamic pricing where the rate changes as your occupancy does and could change multiple times daily. This is why Channel Management Systems have evolved.

An OTA affiliate refers to an online booking site which publishes your hotel on their site even though they are not directly contracted with you. These sites are affilliates of one of the OTA's with whom you are contracted, and earn their fees from the OTA instead of you.

These sites may be independent of OTA's and allow online bookers to search for the best deals by hotel or destination. They may not have their own booking engine or act as referrer sites by displaying the best deals they can find on the internet and divert the booking to an OTA. They earn their revenue from the OTA's for bookings originating from their search site and hotels do not have any obligation to them unless one of the listed booking options is the hotel website.

Rate parity is ensuring all internet sites offer the same rate. In other words, no site has an advantage over another because of pricing.

ADS refers to traditional wholesalers (Special Tour Operators) who have developed sophisticated systems for their network of operators to access rates, inventory and bookings in real time, worldwide. These systems are similar to the OTA's but only accessible to their network. The rates and inventory is managed via an extranet, just like the OTAs.