The Business Travel Magazine Feb/Mar 2019

Travel tech / Speaking out
[ NEW DISTRIBUTION CAPABILITY ]
SOMETHING ODD IS GOING ON
Let’s cut through the jargon, the complexities and the mechanics, and focus
instead on greater choice and ease of booking, writes David Chappell
Now, I’m a tech person through and
through. Cut me and I don’t bleed – I
report a percentage change in my skin
integrity (then document it in Excel). But
techie though I am, I fear that with NDC,
TMCs may be missing the point.
There are seismic shifts occurring in travel
distribution. Of this, TMCs are acutely aware.
For many reliant on GDS revenue NDC is a
four letter word. The change of the role of
the GDS from a distributor of aggregated
content via ATPCo to an aggregator of distributed
content via API means a revolution in
what TMCs can sell and in how they earn.
And yet, that is the point. As an industry,
the terror of this inevitable change to the
distribution landscape has been so allconsuming
that it’s all we’ve talked about for
nigh on two years. I say this not to belittle
the change. It is driven by the market and
therefore essential. Changes to GDS
earnings will be a point of survival for some
not appropriately diversified in their profit
models – and this is of course a big deal –
but it simply shouldn’t be the headline.
Do you remember SIPS? Invented by Volvo
in 1991, it was all they advertised for years.
Slow-mos of test dummies being saved from
obliteration by some clever engineering and,
of course, that catchy acronym. Don’t get
me wrong, SIPS was a clever piece of safety
tech, but ultimately it was a mechanic of the
machine. No one would care about SIPS if
the car didn’t start.
But here’s the thing. You don’t hear about
it much anymore and do you know why?
Because the buying public doesn’t care
about catchy acronyms, that’s why. What
they care about is the experience.
The car industry figured this out years ago.
So now when you watch an advert what do
you see? Technical breakdowns regarding
We need to change
the dialogue in our
industry. We are currently
obsessed by the mechanics
and not by the experience”
the throttle configuration of the EMS? No!
You see cars in forests or on roads filled by
dancers, or the computer reading aloud a
funny text message – it’s all about the
experience and not the mechanics.
We need to change the dialogue in our
industry, both to each other and to our
customers. We are currently obsessed by
the mechanics and not the experience. We
should be talking about what these changes
enable. Retail architecture in corporate
travel – think of that! The Amazon-style,
dataset-driven booking where we cannot
only offer X, but also Y because your
colleague booked Z. Making content relevant
and easy to book should be our mantra.
This is where the conversation should be,
not about the data transmission standard
between an airline and the intermediary
distribution platforms. The retail revolution
has happened already out there in the real
world – we’re playing catching up. Here in
2019, NDC uses XML, a language created five
years after SIPS, in 1996. And just like SIPS,
we would do well to remember that NDC is
just the mechanic of the machine.
DAVID CHAPPELL
David is Technology Director at
travel management company
Fello Travel, having joined from
Gray Dawes Group in October
2018 where he was Head of
Technology.
78 THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.COM