Online travel market evolving fast : Amadeus
TBN —–
The online travel market is evolving – and fast. Asia Pacific travel markets, while diverse in their opportunities and challenges, are no longer isolated ecosystems.
Consolidation is on the rise; big agencies have become mega brands and are acquiring smaller travel agencies to expand their product offerings and customer base.
At the same time, local brands are defeating “the giants” through innovative solutions that focus on niche products or services that deliver unique travel experiences.
The competition is well and truly on to attract a traveler that is less loyal than ever before. Travelers today are demanding the same level of choice, personalized service and consistency across channels and devices, so they can compare and choose the option they desire, according to Amadeus statement.
This will lead to a paradigm shift when it comes to flight retailing, where online travel players will need to rethink their search and booking flows for consumers to find the right product.
Amidst this shake up, Amadeus has released three recommendations for online travel companies to ensure future growth.
Ride the merchandising trend
“Merchandising is at the core of fundamental change taking place in the global airline distribution landscape. The unbundling of airlines’ ancillary products and services such as baggage fees, pre-assigned seats and airport transfers has been a major move for airlines to compete with attractive cheap fares. Today, the ability to cross-sell and up-sell optional services is now critical to secure revenue,” says Sebastien Gibergues, Vice President, Online Travel, Asia Pacific, Amadeus.
“Travel offer unbundling will continue to fragment content, which is good news for online travel companies who will play an important role in helping consumers purchase the right product. However, the challenge will be how to best aggregate and normalize travel content from multiple sources, so it can be searched and compared by travel sellers and travelers,” says Gibergues.
Online travel company Travix is working with Amadeus to enable NDC content to sit alongside traditional EDIFACT technology so that it can be found through one search and displayed in an aggregated way to allow for easy comparison.
FCM Travel Solutions and Flight Centre are also testing new graphical user interfaces to access NDC content in the Amadeus Selling Platform, to transform how they service bookings.
Sept. 15 , 2019
Photo: amadeus
