Travelport, a global technology company that powers bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, today revealed a new survey that highlighted excitement to travel in 2022. In a study commissioned by Travelport and conducted by Toluna Research, thousands of respondents from seven different countries said they’d even be willing to give up some of their favorite things for six months or longer in order to travel.  

• 71% of respondents would forgo concerts
• 64% would stop buying new clothes
• 63% would give up spa treatments
• 60% would skip the cinema
• 53% would give up playing sports
• 36% would stop dining at restaurants

  “While the last two+ years have been a significant challenge, the global travel industry recovered more than 50% of its gross activity by the end of 2021,” said Jen Catto, Chief Marketing Officer for Travelport. “Should this trend continue along the same trajectory, it could reach 85% recovery by the end of this year. The pent-up desire to travel is strong. Our latest survey findings clearly demonstrate this, highlighting how many indulgences people are willing to sacrifice in order to travel again.”   However, not every aspect of the travel experience received the same level of enthusiasm. A notable experience gap emerged between the high degree of enjoyment respondents get from going on holiday and the frustration they experienced when booking that very same trip.  

• 43% of US respondents, the largest travel region, do not find booking travel enjoyable
• But 95% of that same group enjoy the experience of being on holiday

  Globally, travel was ranked as the number one most enjoyable activity, but when it came to shopping for travel, the industry dropped to the number four spot, trailing the worlds of clothing, restaurants and electronics. And this isn’t just a generational issue. A quarter of Gen Z respondents agreed the complexity of searching, comparing and booking travel offers just isn’t fun.   On average, travelers’ visit a whopping 38 different websites before booking their trip. Other industries have steamed ahead in terms of simplicity and innovation, evolving with their consumers’ sophisticated expectations, and shifting perceptions over time. Study respondents found the travel industry to be an outlier, perceiving it to be even less innovative than the finance industry.   “Shopping for travel is complicated, which is why Travelport has made simplifying the complex travel ecosystem its mission,” continued Catto. “With demand for travel rebounding at its strongest pace since the pandemic began, it’s imperative the industry listens to its customers. Now is the time for us to fix travel retail, putting consumer convenience, digital experience, and breadth of choice above all. By restoring clarity, confidence, and fun to travel shopping, we can grow trust, generate repeat business and inspire true loyalty – the benchmark of successful modern retailing.”   This study was conducted by Toluna Research, polling more than 2,000 respondents from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong SAR, India, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. For more information, visit Travelport.com/Retailing-Report or contact [email protected].

  Travelport, a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels worldwide, and Qatar Airways, one of the world’s leading global airlines, today announced a comprehensive new long-term distribution agreement which will underpin the airline’s omni-channel, advanced retailing strategy. The expanded agreement will include, for the first time, NDC content and advanced travel merchandizing solutions – delivered via the next-generation Travelport+ platform.   In addition to extending a longstanding distribution agreement which delivers Qatar Airways content to Travelport-connected travel agencies globally, the agreement will also see Travelport distributing Qatar Airways’ NDC content. By enabling agencies to shop and book dynamic and personalized offers, this will enable the airline to offer differentiated value propositions closely tailored to micro customer segments.   The contract now also includes the use of Travelport’s Rich Content and Branding solution. The technology provides travel agents with graphically rich images and descriptions on fares and ancillaries, equipping them to deliver an equally compelling brand experience, no matter the channel.   “We’re excited about the next chapter with Travelport supporting our growth ambitions,” said Thierry Antinori, Chief Commercial Officer at Qatar Airways. “As we look forward to the recovery in travel, we do not want to add additional obstacles such as surcharges, restrictions or inefficient technical solutions, as we deploy new NDC-based product offerings. Our aim is to provide a consistent shopping experience through all channels, to meet the expectations of our customers and promote the success of our travel trade partners.”   “As the world returns to travel, this is an opportune time to expand our decades-long relationship with Qatar Airways,” said Jason Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer, Travel Partners at Travelport. “We share a vision of modern digital travel retailing, and believe that this combination of NDC content, cutting-edge merchandizing technology, and advanced data intelligence – all made possible by our game-changing Travelport+ platform – will enable the agency sales channel to offer travelers the five-star service Qatar Airways is known for.”

Online rail and coach ticket provider, Trainline announced a multi-year agreement with Travelport as preferred rail provider. Trainline's aggregated content from major rail operators in Europe will be integrated into Travelport+ through Travelport's desktop user interface Smartpoint, and next-generation API's. Travelport+ users will now be able to manage and book cross-European rail offers as easily as they do with airline and hotel content. "Our Travelport+ capability will rapidly integrate Trainline's technology platform leading to improved retailing capabilities for our global network of travel agents," said Jason Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer, Travel Partners at Travelport.

  Travelport, a global technology company that powers international travel bookings for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotel properties, today announced a multi-year agreement with Europe’s leading online rail and coach ticket provider, Trainline. As part of the strategic agreement, Trainline’s vast range of aggregated content from major rail operators in Europe will be integrated into Travelport+ through Travelport’s desktop user interface Smartpoint, and next-generation API’s.   The new collaboration comes as multinational rail options become an increasingly popular mode of transport across Europe for both leisure and business travelers. As demand for environmentally efficient modes of travel grows, global agents connected to Travelport’s next-generation platform, Travelport+, will now be able to manage and book cross-European rail offers as seamlessly as they do with airline and hotel content.   Supported by Travelport+, Trainline will strengthen its commitment to making every journey greener by helping its travelers make smarter choices through simplified and enhanced content distribution.   “Our collaboration with Trainline Partner Solutions builds upon a common objective of being game changers in the travel industry by providing customers with trusted and agile solutions that remove complexity and enhance the overall travel experience,” said Jason Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer, Travel Partners at Travelport. “Our Travelport+ capability will rapidly integrate Trainline’s technology platform leading to improved retailing capabilities for our global network of travel agents and the most compelling range of European rail content for travelers today.”   Champa Magesh, President of Trainline Partner Solutions said, “We are pleased to reach this monumental milestone with Travelport. Making our rail content accessible across the Travelport platform will further enhance our global reach and enable our unique offering to be searched and booked in conjunction with relevant air and hotel content, encouraging greener journeys. Travelport’s technology complements our industry-leading tech offering and we look forward to working together to deliver exceptional travel experiences.”

  Travelport, a global technology company that powers bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, today introduced the latest update to its next-generation platform, Travelport+. Now available, these enhanced, modern retailing tools are paving the way to revolutionize travel retail, modernize the booking experience, and make it easier for agents to offer more choice and deliver better service to their travelers.   “As part of our mission to revolutionize the travel industry’s retail experience, we continue to evolve, simplify, and automate the most critical technology tools. Today’s enhanced features empower travel agents to offer more choice, enable greater self-service capabilities for travelers, and simplify the most complex servicing processes,” said Jen Catto, Chief Marketing Officer at Travelport. “All Travelport+ customers enjoy a more modern, digital-first retail experience when connecting through our platform. That includes our desktop customers, who have said that the latest version of Smartpoint has managed to transform mundane travel management tasks into superior servicing opportunities.”   More Choice, Richer Content, Better Servicing   The evolution of Travelport+ tools and agency capabilities continues with simplified access to enriched travel content from multiple sources, including NDC (New Distribution Capability) standard content. Travelport is the first and only global distribution system (GDS) to sign NDC content distribution deals with all three major European airline groups (Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group (IAG), and Lufthansa Group). The company continues to expand its NDC connections with more than 16 airlines worldwide, including American Airlines, Emirates, Qantas, and Singapore Airlines.   Adrian Kazim, Chief Operating Officer at Emirates, commented: “Together Emirates and Travelport are starting their journey to deliver the future of travel retail; kicking off with our first-ever GDS joint agreement that is inclusive of NDC content; that will enable the flexibility to innovate Emirates’ products and deliver more dynamic and personalized offers.”   Travelport continues to add more servicing capabilities to improve airline connectivity and empower agents to better service travelers with less back-end work. Travelport’s hotel content distribution is also seeing an upgrade with richer room, rate and rules details as a result of upgraded connectivity with Hilton.   Simplified Trip Management for Agencies and Travelers   Customers using the latest version of Travelport’s desktop tool, Smartpoint, can access a suite of features aimed at simplifying everyday tasks. Enhancements include more customized itinerary quotes in Trip Quote as well as faster Assisted Ticketing capabilities that streamline complex ticketing and exchange tasks for agents.   Rachael Keller, Operations Manager at Globetrotter, commented: “Thank you Travelport+ for making our lives so much easier. The improved trip quote capabilities within Smartpoint means we are much faster at providing travellers with highly customized itineraries that better meet their needs.”   Travelport has also launched a new Trip Manager portal on Travelport+, offering travelers the ability to service their own trip, and carry out fast, easy transactions on the go. The self-service option for travelers using the new portal allows agencies to preserve resources while providing travelers an improved experience with the ability to easily add extras to their trip.   Lenka Nemcova, Head of Business Travel at OK Tours, commented: “Trip Manager provides everything our customers need to self-serve on tailoring their trip – all in one place. From adding meals, bags, selecting seats and automatically checking into their flight it simplifies the travel process, allowing our customers to enjoy the experience.”   Intelligent Storefront and Self-Service Tools   Travelport continues its Intelligent Storefront mission with Travelport+. Enhanced APIs make it easier for agents to understand offers and compare brands with similar attributes on a like-for-like basis. Travelport customers will also be able to easily identify upsell offers with NDC and ATPCO fares, for a simpler, more modern browsing and shopping experience.   Agencies can better manage the hotel bookings they sell with a simple self-service rules engine, the Content Optimizer. This tool compliments previous improvements to fare management tools so that agencies can easily create and customize their own content rules. This will help travel agents maximize revenue across every trip they sell.   Travelport-connected agencies and customers can create a modern retailing experience for their customers by using the latest tools and capabilities, only available on Travelport+.

Travelport, and International Airlines Group (IAG) announced a new New Distribution Capability distribution agreement with British Airways and sister IAG airlines Aer Lingus, Iberia, and Vueling. By channelling its NDC content through the Travelport+ platform, British Airways will be able to offer travel retailers a wider range of content  including Additional Price Points and an expanded selection of ancillary products. Katy Cardwell, Head of Distribution and Payments at British Airways, said: "Our new agreement with Travelport is an exciting addition to NDC, creating greater opportunities for all partners in the travel ecosystem. This supports our vision of moving towards a more innovative way of travel retailing,." Travelport and IAG are progressing well on the technical solution for NDC distribution and will continue to add features and functionality ahead of NDC content being rolled out. Chris Ramm, Vice President Global Enterprise, Air Partners at Travelport, said: "Unlocking the potential of sophisticated multi-source content like NDC, by making it easier for the trade to access and sell, is a key part of our plans for Travelport+."

  Travelport, a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels worldwide, and International Airlines Group (IAG), one of the world’s largest airline groups, today announced a distribution agreement to enable modern travel retailing by bringing New Distribution Capability (NDC) content from Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, and Vueling to Travelport-connected travel agencies around the world.   By channelling its NDC content through the next-generation Travelport+ platform, IAG will be able to offer travel retailers a wider range of content – including Additional Price Points and an expanded selection of ancillary products – while taking advantage of modern digital retailing tools such as intelligent storefronts to merchandize them effectively.   Celia Muñoz Espin, Sales Strategy and Distribution Director at Iberia, said: “We welcome Travelport to NDC, as an important part of the innovative and far-reaching transformation that is happening in the industry. This significant agreement is focused on providing added value to customers with access to our exclusive NDC products and fares. Travelport is a trusted provider of technology within the travel industry as it evolves towards next generation travel retailing. It is important for Iberia to partner with technology providers that have proven expertise and fulfils the demand for customer-focused innovation.”   Chris Ramm, Vice President Global Enterprise, Air Partners at Travelport, said: “Unlocking the potential of sophisticated multi-source content like NDC, by making it easier for the trade to access and sell, is a key part of our plans for Travelport+. We are hugely excited to be working alongside a partner like IAG, which shares our vision for modern travel retailing.”   Travelport and IAG are progressing well on the technical solution for NDC distribution and will continue to add features and functionality ahead of NDC content being rolled out.

Travelport announced a multi-year agreement with Hubli, a new platform with a global network of 185,000 bookable spaces for meetings, work and group stays. As part of the new agreement, people booking meeting spaces through Hubli's platform will now be able to simultaneously search and book across Travelport's hotel portfolio for accommodation in the same venue or nearby. The partnership will also see Hubli enabling group hotel reservations for the Travelport hotel portfolio. "Our partnering with Hubli simplifies the booking process for flexible workspaces and overnight accommodation, while offering users more control over every aspect of their reservation, in this new era of hybrid working," said Alistair Rodger, Group Vice President of Agency Sales for Europe at Travelport. Travelport, which already distributes content for more than 300 global hotel brands, will work with Hubli to create an agile API connection to its retailing platform, Travelport+. With this new connection, Hubli will be able to provide users with content incorporating hotel property pictures, specifications, amenities, and geo-coordinates. Ciaran Delaney, founder and Chief Executive Officer at Hubli said: "Enhancing our enterprise platform though Travelport is a key strategic focus for us as we expand our proprietary group stays and meetings booking technology." Our partnership with Travelport allows us to further strengthen our marketplace with a diverse global hotel network in addition to our co-working and unique meeting venue inventory."

  Travelport, a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels worldwide, today announced a multi-year agreement with Hubli, a bold new platform with a global network of 185,000 bookable spaces for meetings, work and group stays. As part of the new agreement, people booking meeting spaces through Hubli’s platform will now be able to simultaneously search and book across Travelport’s hotel portfolio for accommodation in the same venue or nearby. The partnership will also see Hubli enabling group hotel reservations for the Travelport hotel portfolio within their enterprise marketplace.   “Over the last two years, the way we work has fundamentally changed and many businesses have embraced the work-from-anywhere mentality that their employees have demonstrated successfully throughout the pandemic,” said Alistair Rodger, Group Vice President of Agency Sales for Europe at Travelport. “Our partnering with Hubli simplifies the booking process for flexible workspaces and overnight accommodation, while offering users more control over every aspect of their reservation, it also brings our dynamic hotel content to the leaders of this new era of hybrid working.”   Travelport, which already distributes content for more than 300 global hotel brands, will work with Hubli to unlock the value of its travel marketplace by creating a high-speed and agile API connection to its modern retailing platform, Travelport+. With this new connection, Hubli will be able to provide users with in-depth descriptive content incorporating hotel property pictures, specifications, amenities, and geo-coordinates with millions of interest points.   Ciaran Delaney, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Hubli said, “Enhancing our enterprise platform though quality global content sources like Travelport is a key strategic focus for us as we continue to expand our proprietary group stays and meetings booking technology. Our partnership with Travelport allows us to further strengthen our marketplace with a diverse global hotel network in addition to our coworking and unique meeting venue inventory offering a breadth of choice for our clients”

Travelport, in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), is launching a new global accelerator program for travel startups. It aims to address the industry's biggest retailing challenges. "No single person or business has the solution to all of travel's retailing challenges," said Tom Kershaw, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Travelport. "The most effective way to drive innovation, especially at pace, is to unite bright minds from diverse backgrounds and geographic locations." The Travelport Accelerator will see tech startups looking to enter the travel space help solve a series of different travel retailing challenges, such as data protection, hyper-personalization, and customer acquisition. Once the challenge has been set, companies with existing technology and products that are relevant to the challenge are invited to apply. Up to 10 companies will be selected to proceed to the next stage, which involves pitching solutions to a panel of travel companies, including American Express Global Business Travel, Priceline, Internova Travel Group, Direct Travel and Christopherson Business Travel. A group of up to three participants will be selected to move to the final round to collaborate with Travelport and AWS. Each will be given access to the  Travelport travel marketplace. Selected start-ups may receive up to $100,000 in AWS Activate credit and each participant will receive mentoring from travel domain and technical subject matter experts. David Peller, Managing Director, AWS Travel and Hospitality, said: "Travelport Accelerator supports efforts by giving travel innovators the potential to pitch their technology to some of the most influential leaders in the global travel industry and to influence the future of travel retailing." The first challenge set by Travelport and AWS is to introduce cutting-edge digital marketing technology for travel companies, which uses behavioral and demographic traveler data to deliver highly targeted and personalized, real-time offers to customers. Entry forms are available at www.travelport.com/accelerator. The deadline for submission is midnight Pacific Daylight Time (on Wednesday 22 September 2021.

  Travelport has introduced new updated RESTful / JSON APIs to provide next-generation retailing and exchange capabilities to travel retailers globally. As part of its ongoing investment in next-gen platform, Travelport+, the new APIs are being rolled out globally and will offer retailers a gateway for the tools to tailor their retailing experience, and greatly improve efficiency. "With our new APIs, we've expanded our modern retailing toolkit so that agencies upgrading to Travelport+ can more easily personalise the retailing experience," said Greg Webb, Chief Executive Officer at Travelport. "The improvements we've made with these enhanced APIs will give travel retailers around the world simplified access to dynamic retail-ready content, from multiple sources, across all of their points of sale." Travelport says they drive up to 68% faster average transactions and a faster shopping and booking experience for travelers. They can also be used in conjunction with Travelport's SOAP / XML APIs. They include all of the details needed for public, private and tour operator specific air content and can be deeply enriched with Travelport's branded fares Travelport is further simplifying access to multi-sourced content, like NDC, with integrated search capabilities. The new and enhanced APIs, coupled with the latest NDC enhancements from this month's launch of Smartpoint 10, provides exclusive NDC fare accessibility across all agent workflows. Travelport currently has NDC connections underway with 10 major airlines and has enabled a wide range of agencies and their customers - including OTAs, TMCs, consolidators and leisure agencies - to successfully book NDC flights.