Travel advisors are leaning harder on the GDS, and Amadeus has the data to prove it. A new study from the distribution giant finds that travel agents are increasing, not reducing, their reliance on global distribution systems — a signal that matters for anyone selling air, hotel, and ancillary inventory at scale.

The finding cuts against a decade of predictions that direct channels, NDC APIs, and supplier portals would steadily erode the GDS middleman. Instead, Amadeus — one of the three major GDS operators alongside Sabre and Travelport — reports that advisors continue to treat the GDS as core infrastructure for booking, servicing, and earning commission.

Why does advisor GDS usage matter?

Advisors remain one of the most productive distribution channels for airlines and hotels because they consolidate high-value, complex itineraries. When advisors transact through the GDS, suppliers pay segment fees and booking fees to the distribution intermediaries. Rising advisor dependence on the GDS therefore translates directly into booking-fee revenue for Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport — and into distribution cost for carriers and chains that have spent years trying to shift volume to cheaper direct channels.

For sellers of travel, the study's direction of travel is straightforward: the workstation-level tooling that advisors use daily — availability displays, fare quotes, PNR servicing, agency back-office integration — is still where bookings happen. Any supplier strategy that assumes advisors will migrate en masse to supplier-direct booking flows is, on this evidence, premature.

What does this mean for distribution economics?

Airlines have pushed New Distribution Capability content and direct-connect deals partly to bypass GDS fees. But advisor behavior is sticky. The GDS bundles content, comparison shopping, servicing, and settlement in one workflow, and advisors who book at volume optimize for speed and reliability rather than per-segment cost.

That gives Amadeus a defensible position as it publishes research showing its core user base deepening usage rather than drifting away. It also pressures airlines that have withheld content from GDS channels: if advisors cannot find full content in their primary workflow, the friction lands on the supplier's sales, not just on the intermediary.

Hotels face a parallel dynamic. Chains that steer advisors toward direct booking tools and consortium platforms must weigh commission structures against the reality that the GDS remains a booking channel advisors trust and use habitually.

The competitive read

The study arrives as Amadeus competes for advisor loyalty on technology — agency desktops, payment tools, and servicing automation — as much as on raw content. Sabre and Travelport are pursuing the same advisors with comparable tooling. Retention of high-volume agencies is the revenue engine, since each incremental booking through the channel carries intermediary fees.

Amadeus has an obvious interest in publicizing findings that flatter its channel, and the research should be read in that light: it is a vendor study, not an independent audit. Still, the directional claim — advisors leaning harder, not lighter, on GDS workflows — aligns with what agency groups and host agencies have reported anecdotally as bookings have grown more complex and service-heavy.

What comes next?

Expect Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport to keep investing in advisor-facing tools to defend that reliance, and expect airlines to keep testing how much content they can withhold before advisors push back. Whether the next Amadeus study shows the same tilt will depend on how forcefully suppliers move bookings toward direct and NDC channels in the meantime.