What Is a Hotel Switch?
A hotel switch is a connectivity service that links hotel chains' central reservation systems (CRSs) to the global distribution systems (GDSs) that travel agents book through, so a chain reaches every GDS through one electronic interface instead of building a separate link to each (The Formation of THISCO (Hospitality Net, 2002)).
Last updated: November 2026
How a hotel switch works
A switch sits between two kinds of systems. On one side is each chain's central reservation system. On the other side are the global distribution systems that travel agents search. When the first switch was planned, it was meant to cover all seven GDSs operating at the time (The Formation of THISCO (Hospitality Net, 2002)).
One travel distributor lists the service in its partner directory as "CRS level connectivity (Switch)" (Connectivity partner: DHISCO (ODIGEO Connect, 2019)).
Where the hotel switch came from
Some of the world's largest hotel chains paid for the first switch themselves, each one putting money into a shared company (The Formation of THISCO (Hospitality Net, 2002)). That company formed in 1989 as THISCO, short for The Hotel Industry Switch Company (DHISCO becomes a stand-alone company (Hospitality Net, 2015)). THISCO made its first GDS connection, to Sabre, in December 1989 (The Formation of THISCO (Hospitality Net, 2002)).
The business later went public as Pegasus Systems in 1997 and changed its name to Pegasus Solutions in April 2000 (Pegasus Solutions Inc (Reference for Business)). In January 2015, the distribution division of Pegasus Solutions, which ran the switch, became a stand-alone company called DHISCO after a recapitalization with an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital (DHISCO becomes a stand-alone company (Hospitality Net, 2015)).
Why it matters for hotel distribution
For a hotel chain, the switch is how its rooms reach travel agents, who can then search for the right room in real time (Pegasus Switch (XOTELS glossary)). Many hoteliers knew the switch as an outsourced partner that helped them distribute inventory and process transactions across platforms worldwide (DHISCO acquisition (Skift, 2018)).
The scale figures all come from the companies themselves and each counts something different: more than 300 million transactions a month around 2002 The Formation of THISCO (Hospitality Net, 2002), more than 100,000 hotels and over eight billion shopping transactions a month at the 2015 spin-out DHISCO becomes a stand-alone company (Hospitality Net, 2015), and, for the connectivity platform of the company that has owned DHISCO since 2018, two out of five global GDS bookings handled in 2026, published without a method (Enterprise Connectivity product page (2026)).
Hotel switch compared with a channel manager and a direct connect
The three terms are easy to mix up, and the clearest way to tell them apart is to ask what sits between the hotel's own system and the place the room is sold. A switch works at the level of a chain's CRS and faces the GDSs that travel agents search. Channel managers began as simple, one-way tools for managing rates and inventory from a single dashboard. A true direct connect exists only when a CRS or PMS connects straight to a third-party booking channel, so a link that runs through a switch or a channel manager is not a direct connect, whatever a vendor calls it (The Great Debate on Channel Manager, Switch and Direct Connect (Hospitality Net)).
| Hotel switch | Channel manager | Direct connect | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it connects | Hotel chains' CRSs to the GDSs | At the start, one-way rate and inventory updates from one dashboard | A CRS or PMS to a third-party booking channel |
| Intermediary between the hotel system and the channel | Yes, the switch itself | Yes, the channel manager | None |
Frequently asked questions
How many hotel chains founded the first hotel switch?
What happened to the Pegasus switch after 2015?
Is there more than one hotel switch?
Did Pegasus offer anything besides the switch?
Related terms
See all termsWhere Jetstream fits
A hotel switch carries a chain's rates and availability into the GDSs, and those same rooms also have to be right on every other channel the property sells through. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's systems to the channels where guests book and keeps rooms, rates and availability accurate on each one, managed from one place.