This document provides a summary of a webinar on building a travel technology ecosystem. The webinar featured presentations from various companies on aggregating travel content through a single source, creating a Travelport platform, the benefits of open standards, and innovative mobile solutions. Panelists discussed simplifying content management for developers and agencies and empowering selling through unified access to content. The goal is a more responsive travel industry that better meets customer needs.
2. Kevin May, Gene Quinn
Tnooz Tnooz
Editor & Moderator CEO & Producer
3. Panelists
Jason Nash Valyn Perini Amin Kroll Rui Figueiredo
VP, Product CEO CEO Head of Product
Innovation Open Travel CarPilots Development
Travelport Alliance TTS
6. Building a Travel
Technology Ecosystem
Jason Nash, VP Product Innovation, Travelport
17th October 2012
6
7. Marketplace Situation
Travel Content
• Travel application users and
developers need to utilise multiple
websites, API’s and other content
sources in order to access travel
content, functionality and pricing
to meet traveller needs
• Maintaining multiple API
connections is laborious, time
consuming, difficult and expensive
• Some travel content is not
available through API’s today
7
8. Technology Trends & Open Platforms
Developer
Friendly
Web Service
Enabled
API powered
platforms
8
9. Aggregated Content Through A Single Source
• The first global GDS API to
aggregate GDS air, car and hotel
Single Code Easily
content alongside low cost
Base reduces “switch on”
carrier, high speed rail and
costs new content
merchandising content from multiple
sources
• Enables third party
developers, online travel agencies
(OTAs) & travel agencies with their Rich and Single “view”
own point of sale to optimise their comprehensive Universal
development of travel related mulit-source Record – a true
applications for deployment on content super PNR
the web, for desktop solutions or
mobile applications
9
10. Travelport Universal API Architectural Overview
Travelport Travelport
Hub concept allows
Ability to easily connect with open source
technologies and social platforms
Options
Integrator
App for
SouthWest
Smartpoint
seamless integration Points of Sale
Standalone API Customers Travelport of
OTA’s & Corporate &
Software Universal
Travel
Agents new content
developers
Multi
National
Desktop
Traversa ViewTrip
Zero channel Universal API
Travelport
Synchronous & Future proof
Aggregated & Hub Business process Universal Record &
Multi Media & Geo
differentiation
Asynchronous
Services
specific message
routing
services & raw GDS
commands
Universal Profile
synched host PNR
referenced data
New Travelport Content Architecture
Aggregation & TINIT
Multi GDS
AIR, CAR, HTL
WHITE normalization
Rail Content
Hub
Air Content
Hub
Merchandising
Hub
Hotel Content
Hub
Further Content
Hubs
layer offers choice and control Current
Standard GDS Direct connect to Air content Unbundled 2012
participation rail suppliers including LCC Services
Powered by Sprice Future
10
11. Our research confirms the customer value of Travelport
Universal API™ simplifying their content management
Over 50%
of EMEA customer sample were maintaining
6 or more API connections and almost
30% more than 10 connections.
The impact:
About 36% of the sample were spending over 30% of their IT
development spend on adding and maintaining these content sources.
Survey results based upon responses from 170+ EMEA OTAs and offline agencies with online presence
11
12. Creating the Travelport Platform
Capability to customize and
extend the travel agency
desktop
Travelport
App Store /
Travelport Marketplace
Single interface to Universal
a comprehensive Desktop
set of travel Travelport SDK
content Commercial
Developer model for
Network meeting travel
agency needs
Travelport Commercial & and integrating
Universal Support framework local long-tail
API for engaging third content
party developers
Travelport Developer Network
13. Travelport Developer Network Programme
Marketing &
Technical Support
Software Commercial
& Community
Support
Named Partner Technical
Specialist (PTS) who is dedicated Named Account Manager - to
to members of the network ensure members maximise
opportunities around programme
Travelport Universal API The PTS will provide a point of usage / new business
access, support & one contact to escalate any opportunities / programme
inclusive certification fee issues/queries which can't be management & admin.
resolved through the usual support
channels.
Improved visibility of your solutions
to Travelport agency customers via
Quarterly 1-2-1 technology updates Travelport Developer Network
- delivered by a PTS or guest online directory
speaker, providing updates on
Travelport Universal development initiatives &roadmap. Certified App logo
Desktop Developer Increased awareness with
License (SDK access Online forums with access to Travelport's internal subscriber
plus 5 licenses for Travelport product expertise. sales teams via
webinars, events, collateral etc.
development use only)
plus certification for 2 Developer training via
Market research & insight covering
Webcast, Webinar, Self Paced
modules a year Learning -(Subject to Product set) market trends & opportunities.
Travelport Developer Network
14. Leading provider of informed travel choice
Powering business success by enabling providers and
agents to sell how and what they want to, through a
superior travel-buying experience
UNRIVALLED EMPOWERED
INTELLIGENT OPEN
TRAVEL SELLING
SEARCH PLATFORM
CONTENT EXPERIENCE
Providing the Delivering the best Enabling you to Allowing flexible
broadest range of informed choice, access and sell access to content
travel content quickly and accurately content the way and services through
you want an open platform
14
15.
16. The Open Standard
Advantage
Why Open Standards
Matter in the Travel Industry
20. Why Open Standards?
It’s all about transparency and participation…
Any company Any individual
can join can comment
No company can All voices
be excluded are heard
.
Neutral Bias-free
We support all No company
business models can dominate
…and we give them away!
32. Profile
John Smith
Home address in profile
Air Legs
SYD > MELB Depart Nov 2 8.05am
MELB > SYD Depart Nov 9 7.55am
Hotel
Crowne Plaza Check-in Nov 2
Check-out Nov9
33. 1) All fields auto-updated for
every transfer leg
2) Agree to pickup time and PAX #
37. Completed Booking
Confirmation
• Integrated into PNR / Itinerary
• Passenger and Drivers details exchanged
• Via Email, App or SMS
• Agent can continue to Manage jobs via Desktop
Monetised
• Ground Transfer Segment Monetised
• 10% for Limo, Van, Coach transfers
39. TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY & SOLUTIONS
Strong partnerships
bringing added value to the industry
Rui Figueiredo
Tnooz Webinar
October 2012
39
40. WHAT IS TTS
Technology Company founded in 2010 by a
team of Travel Industry and ICT experts
With the objective of developing and
providing innovative online solutions tailored
for the emerging and evolving needs of travel
agencies and airlines
Developing technology in a exclusive
partnership with Travelport
Currently supplying worldwide 4 solutions for
Travel Agencies, Consolidators and Airlines.
(visit www.travel-technology-solutions.com for information about all our solutions)
40
41. HOW DID WE START
Based on Lisbon, Portugal
Branch in Barcelona, Spain
Focused on specific solutions for Latin
markets
All solutions tailored to cover each
market specific requirements
Knowledge of working in the industry for
more than 15 years
Regional partnership with Travelport
41
42. TRAVELPORT DEVELOPER NETWORK
Travelport provides state of the art
API, allowing companies like TTS to develop
on top of their platform
Travelport Developer Network permitted TTS
to take our products globally
Built to join strengths with 3th
parties, bringing added value to Travel Agents
around the world
Travelport global reach combined with 3th
party innovative solutions result like TTS is a
powerful combination
42
43. WHAT IS TMA
Travelport Mobile Agent aka TMA, is a native mobile solution that brings the
power of the GDS cryptic access to the agent, anywhere at any time.
Cryptic Galileo GDS access
Focalpoint look and feel
Quick connection
With you everywhere
Available for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
Soon also in Android phones and tables
43
44. THE HISTORY OF TMA
TMA was initially released in October 2011 in
Brazil, Spain and Portugal
More than 6000 TMA have been installed from more
than 90 countries
Since release, TMA has been downloaded from the
App Store every single day
In July 25th of 2012 was released globally and can now
be used by any travel agent in the world.
Pre-release video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgQluNX_xvk
Release Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTn3kWO-C4o
44
45. TMA – LOGIN
Agents use their existing
GDS SignOn and password
to access TMA
No additional logins
No additional passwords
In a couple of seconds, the
agent is in the GDS
terminal
45
46. TMA – CRYPTIC TERMINAL
Focalpoint style interface
Exactly the same gds commands
as input
The same output
No learning curve
Access to all existing content
Access to all existing bookings
Start the work in the office and
continue working on the road
46
47. TMA - PKEYS
Define PKeys for the most used
commands
Execute them with a single
touch of a finger
Edit, remove or create as many
Pkeys as you wish
Pkeys can have complex valid
GDS command
47
48. TMA - HISTORY
TMA keeps a list of the last 50
commands you entered
Re-execute any command from
the history list with a simple
touch of a finger
Scroll up and down with a swipe
Empty the history list at
anytime
48
49. TMA - CUSTOMIZATION
Customize TMA to your
convenience
Change font and background
colours
Change Font size
Login options
History behaviour
49
50. TMA – MUCH MORE
Same level of functionality on all
devices
Orientation change
Send terminal content by email
Move Up and Down with a
single touch
Change expired password
The full power of the GDS at the tip
of your fingers, anywhere you are
50
51. TMA – WHAT’S PLANNED
In a ever changing world, TMA also
needs to continue to improve.
TMA 2.0 to be released in Q4 2012
TMA for Android to be released Q4 2012
Support for Apollo in Q4 2012
4 new releases per year
Support for Worldspan
Support for more mobile operating systems
51
52. THANK YOU
http://www.travel-technology-solutions.com
52
54. Thank You!
Webinar replay will be available on www.tnooz.com
Please send questions and comments to Kevin
May, kevin@tnooz.com
Notes de l'éditeur
So firstly let’s take a look at some of the core problems we’re trying to solve as part of our open platformIn order to effectively service customers today travel agencies are utilizing multiple websites, API’s and other content sources in order to access the travel content, functionality and pricing they require.Development against multiple APIs and/or content sources is laborious, time consuming, difficult to maintain and expensive. Further, the APIs available today may not offer access to all of the content desired. In addition, the content itself is becoming increasingly fragmented and complex, with the rise of optional services and their associated fees (e.g. un-bundling of baggage, meals, pre-assigned seats, etc.). These services are increasingly difficult for travel suppliers to distribute and for developers and travel agencies to access and manage.Furthermore, the supplier APIs and other content sources are ever-changing; for example, travel suppliers frequently change or upgrade their existing APIs to offer new functionality. This results in additional development costs for users of that API whenever this occurs increasing the cost to process every booking.
In the past the GDS’s have traditionally been partially walled gardens.. We’ve worked with developers.. But it hasn’t necessarily been at the heart of our strategy.But when you look around at the world today it’s clear that a large number of successful software companies succeed not just because of what they themselves build for their customers… but because of what they enable their partners to build on top of their platform.There are numerous examples.. Of course Apple is probably the most popular – just look at the iPhone and the app store. Yes it’s a great bit of hardware but are you really attached to the device or to the apps? And of course some apps are built by Apple but the vast majority aren’t…And clearly there are other examples as well – look at Tweetdeck and Twitter.. Pretty much everyone involved benefitted there – consumers had a better product, Twitter got more traffic… and Tweetdeck – those guys managed to make some money as well.But what does any of this have to do with a GDS?!Well firstly here at Travelport we recognise it’s not easy to be a platform or an eco system–to be successful everyone involved needs to win – so for us that means our supplier partners, our subscribers and of course our developer partners as well as ourselves. We have a great basis to work from though - today Travelport has a phenomenal global reach – connecting hundreds of airlines, more than a hundred thousand hotels and numerous other supplier partners with tens of thousands of agencies worldwide.And we recognise that we can’t.. And shouldn’t… try to meet all of the travel distribution needs of our partners and customers. We should of course build our own tools.. As evidenced by our multi million dollar investment in Travelport Universal Desktop. However we should also build the tools that will allow and encourage development and innovation on top of our platform – so people can re-use our core technology and data assets in innovative ways to meet the needs of multiple niches.And we’re delighted to say we’ve been making just those investments – primarily in our universal API and also our Universal Desktop SDK. In this session we’ll take a look at these in more detail and point you in the right direction to find out more..
Talk to slide..
Travelport Universal API is the first API to provide global access to high-speed rail, low cost carriers and multi-GDS air, car and hotel content via a single API.Universal API is designed to support third party application developers, consolidators, online and large travel agencies who develop and maintain their own travel related applications. These applications use our API products to communicate with our host systems (Galileo, Apollo and Worldspan) and access powerful technologies such as Travelport e-Pricing. With Travelport Universal API, customers are able to reduce software development costs and improve time to market when building travel related applications for deployment on the Web, desktop solutions or mobile applications.The Universal API provides: Access to multiple GDS cores and content sources Aggregated results from multiple sources in one response Ability to query separate sources (e.g. Worldspan availability, Galileo cars)The Universal API provides a single access to Travelport Universal Profile and Universal Record Universal Profile - a single profile and policy relational database that allows greater levels of granularity in storing data and more flexibility in terms of system integration Universal Record – a super PNR storing and linking data in a consistent format irrespective of source
The feedback from our customers is consistent and echoed by this research with more than 170 agencies based in EMEA.It’s time consuming, expensive… and frankly a hassle for our customers to maintain multiple API connections.With our open platform and universal API these are problems we’re trying to solve.. We think the GDS should help customers minimise the number and complexity of the connections they need to manage… so you can spend more time and money on adding value in other areas.
Speaker notes: Travelport’s vision is clear- to be the world’s leading provider of informed travel choice. We enable consumers to make an informed choice about the spectrum of travel options available to them. Central to this vision are 4 key pillars of focus and investment: Unrivalled Travel Content, Intelligent Search; Empowered Selling Experience; Open Platform Unrivalled Travel Content is all about providing the broadest range of travel modes, fares, rates and content. It’s about making sure that we re-aggregate all the dispersed/fragmented content that is available now – enabling travel agents to be more specific and personalized about the criteria. So what does this mean? Global/Local: Globally balanced and relevant content that meets the ever evolving demands of local, regional and global travel | Travel from anywhere everywhere: Multi source content integration previously not accessible by traditional GDS | Content Plus: Extended content enabling access to added value and unbundled offerings Intelligent Search is all about getting the best informed choice, quickly and accurately. It’s about making sure that intelligent search capabilities allow travel agents to determine what is the best match for their customers’ needs and wants. So what does this mean? High performance search: Performance that delivers industry leading accuracy, diversity, speed and efficiency | Broader horizons: Presenting related content beyond the core search to enable enhanced selling opportunities | Getting personal: User-centric results based on nature of travel, personal preferences, supplier preferences and policies.] Empowered Selling Experience is about enabling you to access and sell content the way you want. It’s about delivering greater value by making sure that the maximum level of relevant travel content is bookable in our system and ensuring that those bookings are possible via as many channels and many devices as possible. So what does it mean? Let it flow: Leading point of sale solutions through automated workflow processes that drive flexibility, productivity and efficiency | Travel everywhere: Multiple distribution channels – Desktop, mobile, tablet – searchable and bookable | Engaged experiences: Enhance selling through proactive, dynamic and interactive added-value services Open Platform is about flexible access to content and services. Technologies that adhere to common structures and ensure a stable and secure programming environment where: Multiple distribution channels – Desktop, mobile, tablet – search Travel in any direction: Enhance selling through technology framework based on a common architecture that enables the delivery of services in new and innovative ways on any device | Developing travel expertise: Unique developer relationship, community and technology that delivers new revenue opportunities | Speaking your language: the freedom to innovate and develop next generation travel tools and apps. Should you require a more detailed deck on the Travelport Vision please access this via the Our Company page on Homeport within customer resources; Travelport Vision Presentation
Heart is real time point to point pricing algorithm. Factors time, place, and vehicle class and any other traveler requirements.Prepaid up front fares, no meter risk.Travel Agent = Monetize opportunity. Originally direct to market App based focus - Exclusive in natureRealised gap from an Travel industry perspectiveWhy? Extremely fragmented market – not properly tied to distribution channels.Now very inclusive model. We partner and empower stakeholders on Supply and Demand side to facilitate bookings.The open market approach taken by TravelPort was very important for a ‘non-industry’ start-up such as CarPilots. Embraced the opportunity very early on, being the pioneer third party integrator for the UD.Technically we could use our in-house expertise to code against known frameworks, whilst learning about GDS and industry requirements.Commercially makes sense in order to fast track opportunities for us.
Platform:Open Market PlaceInstantly connects Passenger or Agents with Drivers and ProvidersManages the Users, Agents Experience and Driver Management.Info exchange via alerts and SMS.Aggregate Ground Transfers – Australia wide and NZ coming