New Travelport product navigates industry “sea change”
Travelport showcased its new airline sales tool in Singapore this week, promising a new GDS product intended to serve the needs of a rapidly evolving aviation industry.
Demonstrating the Travelport Merchandising Platform to the region’s media, the technology company said its new product would change the way airlines marketed and sold their fares via the GDS, boosting ancillary revenues and offering a greater amount of choice to both airlines and agents.
Essentially, the new solution offers more in-depth content, with a series of graphic icons, description boxes and photos allowing airlines to display their products more effectively on the GDS booking screen.
Ian Heywood, Travelport’s head of global supplier strategy, said the new product has been designed to cope with a significant shift in the global aviation landscape.
“The vast majority of the time, GDS do exactly what you want them to do. But airline models are changing dramatically and that is something we have got to cater for,” Heywood said.
“Airlines need to convey [product] information in a way they’re unable to do via the GDS today. At the moment whatever your first class product is – for all those multi-million dollars of investment – in the GDS it all comes down to one letter. That is something we’re looking to change.”
The method used by Travelport to implement this change is to enable airlines to provide them with more graphical and descriptive content, in a similar way to how they display products on their own websites. For example KLM is now offering agents the chance to book its new premium economy product, ‘Economy Comfort’, while British Airways is using the platform to sell its pre-paid seats.
And it is this ability to sell these ancillary offerings that Travelport believes will provide the biggest benefits to airlines and agents.
Heywood cited research data as saying that the airline ancillary revenue market will be worth up to US$45 billion by 2015.
“The airline industry does not make massive margins, so the ability to earn additional revenue is very important. [US$45bn] is a sum of money that airlines cannot ignore,” he said. “Airlines need to start acting more like retailers. They need to actively encourage the customer to buy their product over someone else’s. This new platform means we can start treating customers as individuals.”
In terms of agents, the ability to add and remove ancillary products simply by checking boxes on a screen also makes it easier to put a booking together, and the descriptive, image-led content makes a product easier to sell. The Travelport Merchanding Platform is also intended to consolidate airline products, be they full-service, low-cost or otherwise, into the agents’ existing workflow.
The product will, of course, live or die by its content, and its ability to offer significant choice to the agent and customer. As well as KLM and BA, Travelport has secured content from Delta Air Lines, easyJet, Air New Zealand, Alitalia and Aegean Airlines, and the company said it has a “big pipeline”, and is “in active dialogue with every significant low-cost carrier”.
“For those watching this space, Travelport Merchanding Platform is a sea change in the travel industry,” said Derek Sharp, Travelport’s managing director for global distribution. “Travelport is ready, willing, able and already utilising technologies to work with any and all airlines interested in partnering to enable travel agents and consumers to shop, compare and buy travel in whichever channel they choose.”