The NDC Offer Repository has the potential to enable digital travel players to differentiate, foster innovation and improve the overall traveler shopping experience.
Amadeus makes travel work smarter. Our work on the NDC Offer Repository, a cloud-based industry solution to address the NDC high look-to-book challenges in the conversion funnel, is a clear example. Last month we published the results of thefirst NDC Offer Repository pilot project , starringTrip.com and a partner airline. This post followed on fromawhitepaper . Both pieces were focused on the main challenges digital travel players (DTPs) and airlines are facing at the inspiration stage of the travel journey. In today’s world we are also seeing pain points experienced at the shopping phase given the complexities of the flight search ecosystem.
In this blog, we want to focus on the inspiration phase for travelers, and the resulting extreme look-to-book ratios. We have identified four use cases where a future proofed NDC standard will drive innovation for the benefit of airlines, travel sellers and, of course, travelers.
1. Inspire me with a package for the next summer holiday
Packages which comprise flights and accommodations are and will remain a staple of the leisure travel industry. Using the classic systems, tour operators today respond to search queries from travelers by accessing massively and instantaneously available flights and hotels from different databases, connecting the two, calculating a single price for the package before presenting it to the traveler as a live, bookable price.
NDC needs to evolve to address this. From our own calculations, each “package search” could lead to 48K calls to one airline for one point of origin (assuming 30 outbound dates, durations of between five to 22 days, 30 possible destinations).
A NDC Offer Repository solution would capture those calls instead of hitting airline core systems directly. The flight component of the package can be sourced from the NDC Offer Repository, for which content and access are totally controlled by the airlines.
The innovation opportunities for tour operators arise in: how they connect the air offers from the NDC Repository with their partner bed banks; how fast the price is presented to the traveler; follow-up marketing; conversion algorithms; and much more.
2. Inspire me for my next trip
Many travelers start their search without a clear idea of when or where to go. This cohort is flexible on dates, duration, and destination.
Again, the issue is volume. To satisfy a traveler’s need for inspiration, DTPs could send up for every traveler’s request up to 400k NDC shopping queries per airline, even if at this stage in his journey the traveler is only looking at flight options and associated prices.
Features such as map and calendar display or gamification interfaces, are already in the market. Most of these features need the seller to host the airlines’ data within its own environment. There are many ways for travel sellers to host airline NDC content, however very few are controlled by the airline itself.
Evolving NDC away from its purely transactional role and creating a NDC Offer Repository will give airlines control over such access. At the same time, it becomes easier for sellers to innovate further when NDC offers are ringfenced from the core systems, meaning less impact on the airline core systems. For airlines, data from the NDC Repository would be structured the same way as how data is handled in-house, because airlines control the Repository.
By implementing a feedback loop on top for airlines, giving them information on how they perform in the indirect distribution channel they do not full master could lead to data-driven decisions and strategic adjustments if needed.
3. Inspire me based on what I say to my conversational AI
Already many travel sellers and suppliers are using conversational and generative AI. Among other initiatives, Amadeusis working with Microsoft and Accenture to develop new AI-powered integrations between Cytric Easy and Microsoft 365.
This emerging technology opens new doors for innovation at the inspiration stage. Microsoft is alreadylinking its search engine within AI chats, and a potential next step would be to directly include price and booking links within the conversation.
For that to happen, the AI engine will need to connect with the pricing database through a massive amount of queries requiring an instant response, potentially meaning a lower chance of conversion on airline systems, thus reinforcing the need for an alternative.
In this scenario, the generative AI engine will access the offers pushed by the airlines to the NDC Offer Repository. Retrieving offers in this way allows the AI engine’s owner to innovate at their end to widen their appeal to travelers, for customer acquisition and, in time, to secure bookings.
4. Inspire me during my everyday digital activities
An evolved NDC should ensure that the industry doesn’t have to develop a new standard every time a new use case or technology emerges. Furthermore, as innovations would need to include all available airline content, time to market and to deploy these newly created solutions needs to be taken into consideration.
We anticipate use cases for a NDC Offer Repository to emerge from social media and streaming platforms, whatever form that might take come 2030 and beyond. Social will develop as a de facto lead generator. Native targeted advertising can help airlines attract travelers who have expressed an interest in travel, from whatever channel, but remain at the inspiration phase.
Each new channel would need to connect with a range of airline’s core systems adding to the stress they are already under with queries also coming in at the same time from Meta Search Engines and Online Travel Agencies.
The NDC transactional flow would not be appropriate to efficiently generate the content requested from platforms which are not yet built. But this long-term use case is another reason to pursue the idea of a NDC Offer Repository where airlines control which fares are available to which platform, with the fares hosted outside the core systems, allowing these new channels to flex their innovation muscles.
Conclusion
NDC is already supporting many innovations in the indirect channel, but an industry solution based on an evolution of NDC and the development of a NDC Offer repository will take the innovation to the next level. Airlines, and third-party sellers will all see quantifiable improvement in their KPIs for scalability, performance, cost, and conversion.
Furthermore, the release of an NDC Offer Repository will help airlines convert more searchers into bookers in a cost-effective manner, and enable travel sellers to handle any high look-to-book searches throughout the conversion funnel.
Ludo Verheggen, Director Air Distribution Product Marketingin Amadeus, said: “A modern travel shopping experience is what today’s leisure and business traveler is looking for. NDC is the trigger to make this happen. We are committed to bring NDC at scale, exploring and driving future proof search capabilities that give providers and sellers the right tools to facilitate smart retailing.”
All members of the ecosystem are encouraged to get involved in what is still a work-in-progress. We are confident the solution is viable and will support long-term profitability from current and future use cases alike, helping airlines and digital travel players to sell more seats, through more channels, in a more traveler-centric way.
If anything in this post has resonated with you, we’d love to hear from you. As we look to build out a collaborative industry solution, we invite feedback from across the ecosystem. We look forward to hearing from you if you would like to support this initiative.
TO TOP