Key takeaways from T2RLEngage 2024

How are travel platforms helping travel providers and sellers deliver value to their customers, and how has NDC’s rollout shaped the industry’s approach to implementing Offer, Order, Settle, Deliver (OOSD)?

Sarosh Waghmar, our Founder and Chief Product Officer, and Bill Brindle, our VP of Content & Commercials, represented Spotnana at the travel conference T2RLEngage 2024 in September. Over five hundred professionals from airlines, technology vendors, travel sellers, and consultants came together to discuss how the industry is moving towards commercial processes based on OOSD.  

Waghmar shared how Travel-as-a-Service provides modern solutions to the airline industry during a fireside chat with T2RL CEO Richard Clarke. Brindle discussed NDC experiences and OOSD expectations with a panel of travel sellers.

Here are four takeaways from T2RLEngage 2024.

Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

Global content and offers

Travel platforms build integrations with different content sources to bring customers the widest possible array of travel choices. Waghmar said that increased content fragmentation has created additional opportunities for innovation, given the shifting habits of buyers in business travel.

“Corporate buying habits have changed. There’s a very different audience that is buying travel today than there was 20 years ago,” said Waghmar.

Waghmar discussed how Spotnana helps airlines build loyalty with corporate customers, starting with providing airlines the ability to design offers that differ from what they traditionally sell.

“It’s not about a negotiated rate anymore,” said Waghmar. “Inside a personalized offer there’s the ability to offer someone Wi-Fi, an upgrade, and entitlement shopping. Personalization includes the ability to recognize the customer and create that offer for them specifically.”

Waghmar explained how Spotnana brought new capabilities to Qantas through a first-of-its-kind direct integration between Qantas’ Amadeus Altéa Passenger Service System (PSS) and Spotnana’s API-native travel platform.

“We’ve connected to the [Altéa] PSS directly and created an entire business travel tech stack for an airline that they can run inside their own infrastructure on their own website,” said Waghmar. “You have an airline that has outsourced its small business rewards program, and it has become a TMC as well as offering its own booking tool. That entire infrastructure is powered by us directly connecting with their PSS system.”

User experiences

Business travel innovation is accelerating to support better traveler experiences beyond mobile, web, and UI improvements.

“Our whole purpose in creating this platform is to let the supplier know who the customer is and take the TMC along on this journey,” said Waghmar. “It’s not one or the other.”

Waghmar shared why he prefers a platform-based approach over a product-based approach for supporting better experiences across the $11 trillion travel industry.

“The focus of Spotnana and Travel-as-a-Service is, ‘How do you become a platform and not a product company?’ Platforms create more value for everyone in the ecosystem than the company that creates the platform.”

The focus on building an open platform has shaped how Spotnana has scaled to serve customers across different travel sectors. 

“We’re connecting not only the suppliers but even the travel sellers at the end of the day,” said Waghmar. “We’re building out not just the booking tools that you can offer to a corporation but the entire stack that powers a TMC or any travel seller out there in the world.”

Operational efficiency

Modern technology can help TMCs grow their businesses while increasing efficiency. Platforms like Spotnana enable TMCs to increase automation so agents can focus on high-value tasks and provide scalable services to their customers.

“When you take care of the TMC, you’re taking care of the corporate customer too,” said Waghmar. “We cannot just build in isolation for the TMC, because the TMC uses our tech stack to offer both online and offline booking to the corporate customer.”

Travel platforms with full NDC connectivity allow TMCs to sell the best content that suppliers offer. When delivering NDC, it is essential that travel platforms address servicing to limit the need for manual TMC intervention. When content from NDC connections is integrated seamlessly into both the traveler’s online booking experience and the TMC’s agent desktop, time-consuming manual tasks are eliminated.

“Servicing is the biggest thing for TMCs,” said Waghmar. “You reduce the cost of business for a TMC by automating all of it.”

OOSD collaboration

Bill Brindle explored how bringing NDC to buyers will shape the future distribution landscape in the panel discussion titled “Offers and Orders in the Travel Agency Channel: How to Achieve a Win-Win in Indirect Channels.”

Brindle, alongside speakers from TPConnects, Expedia Group, and Riyadh Air,  shared insights about the rollout of NDC and how all participants in the value chain will have an equitable share in the benefits of Offer, Order, Settle, and Deliver (OOSD).

“As we move into more of an Offers and Orders world, things will have to work slightly differently,” said Brindle. “We’re looking at what products TMCs can use in this new journey, and how the airlines will need the service structure out there to enable this change.”

While many initially predicted that NDC would take five years to implement, delivery took approximately 15 years. The panel agreed that a lack of industry-wide collaboration contributed to this delay. However, they confirmed that there is now sufficient collaboration between suppliers, buyers, and travel sellers to successfully implement OOSD and foster innovation for travelers.

“I’ve been in the travel industry a while and this is the most exciting it’s been for some time. The pace of change and the rate at which we can develop is phenomenal,” said Brindle. “The acceptance [of NDC] is there now, and things will quickly shift over the next few years.”

To learn more about how Spotnana’s Travel-as-a-Service platform can transform your travel business, get a demo of Spotnana today.