TRAVELPORT unveiled its Travelport Merchandising Platform which promises to transform the way airlines deliver their products and the way that those products are displayed to travel agents.
The new Travelport Merchandising Platform will enable Middle East and Africa (MEA) airlines to: differentiate and distribute their full suite of products and services, including fares and ancillaries with complete consistency across all channels; distribute content using whichever technology best suits their business model; achieve greater brand consistency by controlling how their product is presented across all channels; maximising return on investment by demonstrating differentiation from their competition and increased ancillary sales; deliver a compelling user experience in all channels, driving competitiveness and enabling more profitable revenue.
The new platform will give travel agents across MEA access to the full range of airline products, including ancillaries, in their familiar, consolidated and integrated workflow that assists them in making the best informed choice for their customers, offer their customers a better, more complete service demonstrating their deep product expertise and maintain high levels of productivity and reduced training times.
Will Owen Hughes, senior director, Airline Services, Middle East and Africa at Travelport, said: “Travelport Merchandising Platform paves the way for significant change in the distribution landscape by enabling airlines to go to market with all of their products in the right place, at the right time, in every channel. It provides complete consistency in how an airline’s product portfolio is presented and sold across all channels.”
Travelport Merchandising Platform encompasses industry leading technologies that facilitate the acquisition of additional, richer content from airlines, whatever the source of that content, ie through APIs, through industry standard data filing protocols, such as ATPCO or through a blend of both. The Travelport Merchandising Platform then enables the ability to display and promote this content across all points of sale.
Travelport Merchandising Platform also provides three retailing solutions:
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Travelport Aggregated Shopping (launching now): consolidates within the same screen shopping results for traditional carriers who connect through ATPCO and those with whom Travelport has an API connection so there is no need to duplicate shopping requests and compare across several screens. Travelport is the only GDS that allows agencies to shop both types of carriers in a single display and booking flow. Simply put, Aggregated Shopping gives airlines the ability to distribute their content in the way they choose to, and for travel agents to be able to sell this through a consistent, efficient workflow.
Travelport Ancillary Services (available now): Enables travel agents to sell airline ancillaries within their existing workflow so there is no need to navigate to airline.com to offer the full range of products for carriers that choose to do so.
Travelport Rich Content and Branding (launching late 2013): Currently in development with several partner airlines the Rich Content and Branding component of the Travelport Merchandising Platform allows airlines to communicate the value of their products to and through the agency community. Travel agents have access to all of the information on an airline’s product within the booking flow improving efficiency, levels of service and the ability to make informed travel choices.
Travelport also launched its aggregated shopping with EasyJet marking a milestone in the complete realisation of the Travelport Merchandising Platform. As a result, Travelport-connected agents can now sell all EasyJet fares and ancillaries, including those that were previously only available on the carrier’s website, making it the only GDS that allows its subscribers to shop, price and book fares and ancillaries from all types of carrier in a common workflow regardless of the technology used to aggregate that content.
Travelport Merchandising Platform is the outcome of the Company’s steady investment in industry-leading technology to allow airlines to differentiate their products via the travel agency channel whilst enabling travel agencies and consumers to fully understand and compare products and offers from those airlines.