Glossary
Travel industry terms, in plain English.
Acronyms, roles, and concepts travel designers and agencies actually use. Updated as the glossary grows.
Roles
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DMC (Destination Management Company)
A DMC, or Destination Management Company, is a local travel agency that designs, books, and operates trips inside a specific country or region for inbound clients (usually overseas tour operators or direct travelers). DMCs handle suppliers, logistics, transfers, guides, and on-the-ground execution.
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GSA (General Sales Agent)
A GSA, or General Sales Agent, is a company appointed by a travel supplier to represent and sell their products in a market where the supplier has no direct sales office. The GSA earns commission on bookings it generates and manages local agent relationships, trade marketing, and product education on the supplier's behalf. Airlines, international hotel groups, cruise lines, and DMCs rely on GSAs to access markets where direct representation is commercially unviable.
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OTA (Online Travel Agency)
An OTA, or Online Travel Agency, is a digital travel reseller that sells flights, hotels, tours, and packages directly to travelers through a website or app. OTAs aggregate inventory from suppliers and earn revenue through commissions, markups, or merchant-model margin.
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Retail travel agency
A retail travel agency is a travel business that sells flights, hotels, cruises, and packaged tours to consumers — acting as the final distribution link between suppliers and travelers. Retail agencies earn revenue primarily through supplier commissions, override bonuses, and, in markets where airline commissions have been eliminated, service fees charged directly to the traveler.
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Tour operator
A tour operator is a travel business that designs, packages, and sells multi-day trips — combining flights, hotels, transfers, activities, and guides — either directly to travelers (B2C) or through retail travel agencies (B2B). They take operational and commercial responsibility for the trip.
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Travel designer
A travel designer is an independent professional or boutique agent who designs custom, tailor-made trips for FIT clients — typically working solo or in a small team, charging a planning fee or commission. The role overlaps with travel agent and travel advisor but emphasizes creative itinerary design and personalization.
Tools
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B2B travel platform
A B2B travel platform is software that exposes a tour operator or DMC's net rates, inventory, and itineraries to reseller agencies through a dedicated agent interface. It replaces email and PDF rate sheets with a real-time booking workspace built for B2B partners rather than end travelers.
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Bedbank
A bedbank is a B2B wholesale platform that buys hotel inventory in bulk at contracted net rates from accommodation providers and resells it exclusively to travel agencies, tour operators, and DMCs — never directly to consumers. Agencies use bedbanks to access hotel net rates they lack the volume to negotiate independently with individual properties.
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GDS (Global Distribution System)
A GDS, or Global Distribution System, is a centralized network that distributes travel inventory — flights, hotels, car rentals, rail — from suppliers to travel agencies, tour operators, and OTAs. The three major GDS providers are Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport.
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Itinerary builder
An itinerary builder is software that lets travel designers, DMCs, or agencies assemble a day-by-day trip — flights, hotels, activities, transfers — into a branded proposal that can be shared with the client as a web link or PDF.
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Travel agency software
Travel agency software is the suite of tools agencies use to run their business — itinerary builder, CRM, supplier management, proposal generation, and analytics. Modern travel agency software consolidates these functions into one workspace, replacing the legacy stack of Word, Excel, Drive, and email.
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Travel CRM
A travel CRM is a customer relationship management tool tailored to travel agencies, DMCs, and tour operators. It tracks travelers, leads, preferences (dietary, accessibility, room types), trip history, and sales pipeline — usually integrated with itinerary design and proposal tools.
Segments
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FIT (Fully Independent Traveler)
FIT, or Fully Independent Traveler, refers to travelers who book customized trips — typically through a travel designer or agency — rather than joining group tours. FIT trips are bespoke, tailored to the traveler's preferences, dates, and budget.
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GIT (Group Inclusive Tour)
GIT, or Group Inclusive Tour, is a pre-set, scheduled trip sold to multiple travelers on a shared itinerary — fixed dates, fixed program, often with a tour leader. GIT is the structural opposite of FIT (Fully Independent Traveler).
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Incentive travel
Incentive travel is a segment of the business-events market in which companies fund group travel experiences as a reward for high-performing employees, partners, or channel teams. It sits within the MICE umbrella alongside Meetings, Conferences, and Exhibitions, but is the most leisure-adjacent of the four — designed to motivate, recognize, and retain rather than inform or convene.
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MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions)
MICE, which stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions, is the business-events segment of travel — group trips built around corporate or professional events rather than leisure. MICE programs are organized by corporates, associations, and professional congress organizers, usually working with a specialized DMC on the ground.
Concepts
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Contracting
Contracting is the process by which tour operators, DMCs, and travel agencies negotiate rates, availability blocks, and service conditions with hotels and other suppliers, then load those agreed terms into their booking system. The contracted terms — net rates, meal plans, release dates, allotment sizes, and cancellation policies — form the commercial foundation from which all packages, quotes, and proposals are built and priced.
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Gross rate
A gross rate, or commissionable rate, is the retail price a travel supplier — hotel, cruise line, or tour operator — quotes to a travel agency with a commission percentage already embedded in the price. The agency earns that commission as a remittance paid by the supplier after the booking is fulfilled, rather than marking up a wholesale net rate at the time of quoting. It is the structural counterpart of the net rate, and the two models coexist across most professional travel itineraries.
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Inbound tourism
Inbound tourism is the segment of travel made up of non-residents visiting a country — international travelers arriving from abroad, served by local operators, DMCs, and inbound agencies. It contrasts with outbound tourism (residents traveling overseas) and domestic tourism (residents traveling inside their own country).
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Markup
A markup is the amount added to a net rate — the wholesale cost of a service — to produce the selling price quoted to the traveler. In travel, markup is the mechanism by which agencies, DMCs, and tour operators generate margin on the components they source and resell.
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Net rate
A net rate is the wholesale price a supplier (hotel, transfer company, activity vendor) charges to a travel agency, DMC, or tour operator — without commission baked in. The reseller adds its own margin on top before quoting the traveler.
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Transfer
A transfer is the point-to-point movement of travelers between two locations — airport, hotel, attraction, venue — arranged by a DMC, tour operator, or travel agency as a discrete, priced component of an itinerary. Transfers are distinct from guided touring: the service is logistics and transportation, not destination interpretation.
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Travel commission
A travel commission is a percentage-based fee paid by a supplier — hotel, cruise line, airline, or tour operator — to a travel agency, DMC, or designer for generating a confirmed booking on behalf of a client. Commission rates vary by product type: hotels typically pay 8–15%, cruise lines 10–20%, and airline commissions on standard fares were largely eliminated in most markets between the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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Travel inventory
Travel inventory is the pool of bookable travel products — hotel rooms, airline seats, transfers, tours, and activities — that suppliers expose to agents and operators at any given moment. Bedbanks, OTAs, tour operators, and DMCs aggregate inventory from multiple sources and distribute it at a markup or commission. Its defining constraint is perishability: an unsold room night or empty seat is revenue permanently destroyed once the travel date passes.