Travelport launches new marketplace for travel retailing

Travelport, has today launched its next-generation platform, Travelport+. Travelport+ is the centerpiece of Travelport’s new global strategy and is designed to accelerate industry innovation in multi-source content distribution, travel retailing and value generation.

Travelport+ is an extensive, next-generation platform that creates a simplified, capability-rich, marketplace for travel retailing. As travel distribution has evolved, retrofitting new types of distribution into existing platforms has led to increased complexity across the industry, slowing progress. Travelport+ is a true multi-source platform offering more dynamic, differentiated, retail-ready content, delivering better choices for retailers and consumers, in a faster, frictionless way.

“It’s a monumental moment in our history and in the development of our industry”, said Greg Webb, Chief Executive Officer at Travelport. “Travel hasn’t kept up with the evolution of modern digital retail and today, the buying and selling of travel is more complex than it needs to be. As Travelport is the only dedicated, global, travel distribution platform, we have made a multi-year investment to accelerate industry innovation in travel retailing. Bringing together the best of Travelport’s existing capabilities and tools and driving innovation to deliver the unmet needs of our industry, Travelport+ truly changes the game in the speed of delivery of modern travel retail and offers a fundamental upgrade to travel technology.”

Built as a single, next generation environment, including: a modern, lightweight, highly functional lightweight microservices API, complete with NDC content; enhanced airline ticket exchange tools; a trip container to manage all aspects of the trip; and a sophisticated point of sale solution to address the needs of the professional travel agent, Travelport+ sets a new standard in the management of global travel content.

Travelport+ offers better retailing and merchandising capabilities which in turn leads to higher value trips. Through better efficiency, supported by Travelport’s leading data and insights, Travelport+ will unlock the potential for better offers and more content for all parts of the travel industry.

Content+

Travelport+ will bring together the most compelling range of air (ATPCO, LCC and NDC), car, hotel, and rail content. It will achieve this by simplifying how Travelport connects and delivers travel-relevant content, regardless of the source, the seller, and how it’s consumed. It will also offer the tools to control new content in a way that optimizes revenue and provides a new approach to profile management where all components of a traveler’s journey are able to be retrieved, modified, and combined in any manner possible, regardless of source.

Retail+

Travelport+ will include an ever-broadening array of new tools with merchandising (including cross-sell and up-sell) capabilities designed to improve the traveler experience, while maximizing revenue and customer loyalty for travel retailers and suppliers. Merchandising capabilities will build on our existing configurable storefront for travel retailers that delivers personalized and dynamic offers to provide travelers with the best possible choice. Embedded intelligence will enable both travel retailers and suppliers to continually optimize their offers, as well as their pricing and merchandising strategies.

Value+

Travelport+ will enable customers to more tightly control their cost-to-serve and enhance their value generation through a series of best-in-class performance, efficiency and automation tools. The platform will also improve the user experience for developers, propelling traveler self-service and reducing pain points with exchanges, refunds and order management.

“We’re here to power the change makers” added Webb, continuing, “we’re championing simplification and supporting our agencies to be modern digital retailers. At Travelport, we’ve doubled down on what we do best; great content, better retailing and providing the best value to all parts of the travel industry. Nothing else, no conflicts or competing interests, simply powering the next generation of travel.”

The rollout of Travelport+ has already begun with a number of agency and supplier partners taking part in the initial upgrade. Travelport+ will continue to be gradually rolled out globally, managed by a specialized customer support team.