Tag Archives: Travelport

India’s business travel industry has grown by 16.2 per cent over the past five years (2011-2016), according to a report by Travelport and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) launched at the WTTC Global Summit 2017 in Bangkok. It has been predicted that Asia-Pacific will lead the way at a predicted rate of 6.2 per cent each year to 2027, with India (7.2%) among the top five countries attributing to the growth. Over the past five years, at a global level, business travel spend has grown at an annual average of 3.6 per cent, with the strongest growth in the past 5 years having taken place in Asia, the Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa. The CEO of Travelport, Gordon Wilson, commented: “Every day we see business travel growing at a significant rate in many emerging markets with technology playing an in increasingly important role in easing the way for those on trips for their work. As an industry we need to continue to invest in the best technologies and infrastructure whilst governments need to be more business-friendly by removing burdensome visa requirements.” David Scowsill, President & CEO, WTTC, said: “Travel & Tourism generates USD$7.6 trillion in GDP and supports over 292 million jobs. Business travel is a vital part of the sector, and it is a key catalyst for global growth. It drives the relationships, investments, supply chains and logistics that support international trade flows.”

Travelport announced that it has become the first GDS to be granted with both ‘Aggregator Level One’ certification and ‘IT Provider Level Two’ status by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as part of its New Distribution Capability (NDC) programme. For airlines, this means that Travelport is able to fully integrate with its NDC application programme interface should the airline choose to use NDC-XML messaging to distribute and deliver their fares and products. For travel agencies and travel management companies, this means that when shopping for and booking flights via Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, they will have even more enhanced travel content and greater access to ancillary offers. In particular, Travelport-connected agents will be able to make ancillary sales post the original flight booking, and through their preferred agency workflows, for the first time. Travelport has also achieved the NDC-capable ‘IT Provider’ Level Two status, making it only the second organisation—and first GDS–ever to be designated as NDC certified and NDC Capable.  This further expands its NDC capabilities and means that Travelport also has the option to distribute IATA NDC offers for fares and prices on behalf of the airlines electing to use IATA’s industry standards.

IndiGo Airlines will now have its fares and ancillaries on Travelport’s travel commerce platform in India. The announcement was made in September, and now the content is live on Travelport. The launch saw in attendance Aditya Ghosh, President & Whole Time Director, IndiGo,  and Gordon Wilson, President & CEO, Travelport. The partnership will see IndiGo leverage Travelport’s leading merchandising capabilities to bring IndiGo’s brand proposition to life for travellers in India, and will be rolled out to agents globally in a phased approach.

IndiGo has entered a strategic partnership with Travelport which will see the airline distribute all of its fares and ancillary products to Travelport-connected customers worldwide. This is the first time that IndiGo has struck a deal with a global GDS. Through the strategic partnership with Travelport, IndiGo will place its fares, ancillary products and offers into the Travel Commerce Platform. The platform offers fully integrated, industry leading merchandising capabilities and is used extensively by travel agencies in India as well as other key target markets for IndiGo. This distribution platform, unique to Travelport, will enable IndiGo to provide its content via an API connection, rather than the more traditional fare filing methods often favoured by network carriers, and still have their fares and ancillaries displayed, compared and booked in exactly the same way. In addition, the airline will also use Travelport’s leading merchandising capabilities to bring IndiGo’s brand proposition to life for travellers arriving into India and then seeking domestic flights within the country. The distribution partnership will also help the airline reach travellers in international markets as it continues to expand its route network into destinations in the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and South East Asia. Commenting on the partnership, Aditya Ghosh, President & Whole Time Director, IndiGo said: “This arrangement with Travelport will allow us to reach new customers, both at home and overseas, in a cost effective manner without incurring the traditional costs associated with participating in global distribution platforms using old style industry mechanisms and instead, enabling our real time connectivity to the GDS platform via an XML API link.” Derek Sharp, Travelport’s Managing Director, Air Commerce, said, “It is a testament to our product leadership, …

Travelport announced the creation of a new organization, Travelport Digital, as part of its strategic focus on the fast-growing digital economy. The new Travelport Digital organisation will optimise the investments that Travelport has made into various digital assets and products over the past couple of years with the aim of growing Travelport’s range of digital services. The formation of the function builds on Travelport’s acquisition last year of MTT, the leading provider of mobile and digital solutions to the travel industry, as well as its investment in Locomote, a corporate travel management platform.  Bryan Conway, a seasoned Travelport executive has been appointed Head of Travelport Digital. Alongside the formation of Travelport Digital, Travelport has also established a new Customer and Marketing Organisation, aimed at fulfilling Travelport’s vision to redefine travel commerce and deliver a market leading customer experience.  This organization will be led by Fiona Shanley, who joins from Microsoft this month. Both Conway and Shanley will report into Chief Commercial Officer, Stephen Shurrock, who joined Travelport from Telefonica Digital at the beginning of the year. 

Travelport and OYO has announced a new agreement whereby 6,000 hotel properties offered by OYO will be made available through Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform to its travel agency users, both in India and around the world. OYO currently operates in more than 180 Indian cities, including Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Goa. Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform connects hotel providers and independent properties to its 68,000 connected agencies worldwide, in turn, offering travellers more hotel choices as Travelport now offers 650,000 unique hotel properties. Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer, at OYO said, “We are pleased to partner with Travelport and take our offerings to a wider audience. Both OYO and Travelport are recognised for leveraging innovative technology capabilities. We are confident of utilising this synergy to unlock new growth areas for both partners.” The agreement with OYO is the latest example of Travelport responding to the needs of its agents to add the hotel content they need in their local regions.  It also responds to the needs of hoteliers by giving them access to the international travel booking industry. Once on Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, travel agents globally have access to the hotel content through their normal workflow, eliminating time-consuming and inefficient bookings across different channels.

Travelport Rich Content and Branding has added over 100 airlines since the start of 2015, taking the count to a total of 150, as of March 15. In the past few weeks, Travelport has announced that carriers such as British Airways, Iberia, SAS and JetBlue have all joined the roster of airlines around the globe using Rich Content and Branding including Fares Families. The travel commerce platform has also added the capability for airlines to make tailored or personalised offers to both individual travel agencies and/or the corporations that a Travel Management Company services. Derek Sharp, Travelport’s Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Air Commerce, commented, “We’re delighted to be celebrating such a major milestone in the evolution of Travelport’s airline merchandising technology where we now lead the industry by a considerable margin.”