Genesis deal gives birth to alternate GDS

“This is our Boston tea party,” says Bruce Bishins, maverick president of Genesis, on the eve of an announcement that his company tapped Atraxis Group to create its reservations, ticketing and settlement platform.

The Revolutionary War metaphor is appropriate, considering the agency-owned distribution system’s struggle to break a virtual monopoly held by industry giants such as Sabre and Galileo. Bishins’ plan to introduce a new distribution system that isn’t based on proprietary technology that he says makes agents dependent on GDSs – and turns GDSs into “technology nannies” – is itself quite possibly revolutionary.

“We had to be discreet,” he says.

All that is over, now that Atraxis, the Zürich, Switzerland, airline IT provider has thrown its weight behind the fledgling project – the figurative French in the agents’ battle for independence from their GDS masters.

Atraxis will almost certainly take some heat for signing this deal, but it brings Genesis a step closer to Bishins’ vision of reducing what he calls “ever-escalating” segment fees. The new system’s billing won’t be based on booking transactions, but rather on products sold. Fees will be set on a sliding scale that is pegged to the cost of the product rather than on an arbitrary transaction charge.

“If no customer is produced,” he adds. “You don’t have to pay.”

There’s still a war to fight, though. The technology agreement will take a year to implement. Genesis must still find a way of fusing its reservations, ticketing and settlement systems, into a single, coherent platform. By the first quarter of next year, it hopes to begin beta testing; deployment to its first 10,000 agencies and association members should start in the spring of 2002.

“Over time, agents will see the value of supporting the GDS that they own,” predicts Bishins.

In a way, the Genesis story is a tale of a birth – and a re-birth – of sorts. When I interviewed Bishins more than four years ago his idea of a new GDS based on the Internet’s TCP/IP protocol and owned by agents promised to change travel as dramatically as the Web would change the way we did business. But in both cases, reality didn’t quite match up to expectations.

Genesis has spent the better part of the last year-and-a-half in what Bishins calls “stealth” mode – lying low and planning its next move. Here’s how the company got through it:

You have to be persistent. The odds were – and still are – against Genesis. Bishins had to knock on many doors before he found “the organization that has vision and understands the marketplace” – in other words, an ally that wasn’t afraid of bruising the establishment GDSs fragile egos. All the while, Bishins says he was motivated by a sense that history was on his side. “We cannot stand by while the GDSs build their wealth on agents’ backs,” he says.

Giving up isn’t an option. “Even in the presence of what may look like very dismal prospects, you keep looking into other opportunities. We knew from the beginning this was going to be an uphill struggle, and we still have a long road ahead,” says Bishins. The more resistance he encountered, the more determined Bishins became to see the project through. Before long, Genesis had grown to a “pretty laudable size,” so that when prospective partners considered working with it, Genesis began to look like a good opportunity.

Never underestimate the effectiveness of ‘stealth.’ Bishins didn’t want any “false starts,” and this industry being what it is, it’s easy to see why. This column has documented the folly of a premature introduction (Orbitz) and the effectiveness of discretion (Hotwire and iJet). Genesis’ self-imposed “quiet” period lasted a good deal longer than normal. “We wanted to be very clear and careful in our relationship before we shared them,” says Bishins. “We didn’t seek to gain the spotlight, but during that time we were very busy building our registries.”

Everything changes. I’m left with the impression that Genesis knows the GDSs lock on power can’t hold forever. Just as computers displaced handwritten airline tickets, so, too, Bishins knows that things can’t stay as they are now. Four years ago, Genesis might have been ahead of its time, but by remaining a player, it might now be in the right place at the right time. That’s what Bishins appears to be counting on.

These strategies, somewhat reminiscent of Travel.com’s “last man standing” philosophy, have served Genesis well so far. The industry will be watching to see if it continues to work this year.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

Be the first to comment