Travel & Hospitality: how the sector works
how travel and hospitality work: perishable inventory, the distribution web (OTAs, GDS, direct), the experience economy, and extreme seasonality.
This block builds a working map of Travel & Hospitality as a business system: how airlines, hotels, tour operators, OTAs, GDSs and destinations connect to move travelers and capture revenue. You will trace the value chain from supply (rooms, seats, experiences) through distribution to the end customer, see who holds pricing and data power, and understand why margins concentrate with distributors and asset-light platforms rather than asset-heavy operators. You will learn the regulatory backbone (aviation law, consumer protection, package travel rules, data and safety compliance) that shapes commercial decisions. Finally, you will get the numbers, acronyms, and benchmarks used daily by professionals, plus quick checks to assess any player's position, so you can read a company or deal with sector fluency rather than generic business logic.
What you'll master
- Map the end-to-end travel value chain from supply to distribution to consumer and identify where value and margin actually sit
- Assess the competitive position and bargaining power of an airline, hotel group, OTA, or GDS within its ecosystem
- Identify which regulations and compliance requirements apply to a given travel business model and what they require in practice
- Use standard sector KPIs, acronyms, and benchmarks (RevPAR, ADR, load factor, GDS fees) to evaluate performance and run basic due diligence