So what is causing this disconnect between the apartment operators and the intermediary? Peter Dennis is Director of e-Commerce Development with the specialist accommodation, UK meetings and event management service provider BSI, and has lectured on booking, distribution and technology issues in the accommodation sector for many years.

Front, middle and back office

"The main issue for a TMC is that in anything technical one needs to consider; front, middle and back office applications.

The front is basically the viewing and input interface. For example, what screen is the travel agency's reservation clerk looking at? What are they in putting their work into?

The middle , or middleware (as it is sometimes referred to), is where the rules of a company's travel policy get applied. The reservation clerk needs to be aware of these, so that they are booking the right kind of product. The middleware also controls self-booking tools from a travel policy control perspective.

The back office is where things like finance, accounting and Management Information (MI) systems are generated - i.e. the booking data which produces reports, both internal and for customers."

"TMCs have been very dependent on the GDS environment for availability, booking and MI. The GDS's have historically incentivised agencies to use their particular systems. Traditionally, an agent would be on one system (although more and more they're using multi- GDS's), and this has in the main governed the front to middle to back office processes. That means that everything the agency does, such as booking a British Airways flight followed by a Marriott hotel booking, has to be input into the front office in order to feed the middle and back office applications. If they're booking in GDS, we can safely say that suppliers' inventory is available in GDS."

Source: The Apartment Service Global Survey 2008