Booking tools evolve amid ecosystem changes

Understanding OBTs’ inner workings

OBTs get their content through a variety and combination of options including direct connects, global distribution systems and other aggregators. But an OBT isn’t likely to have every direct connect, nor are they going to use every aggregator, “and some of those aggregators come at a cost,” says Hamer, adding that some OBTs also “don’t necessarily connect or work with every GDS,” but having access to content is critical.

Despite Klee’s comment about TMCs and OBTs needing to provide value-adds, just getting access to that full content is top of mind for many travel managers, particularly with airlines increasing their use of New Distribution Capability and continuous pricing and not necessarily having all their content available in the traditional EDIFACT channel.

“If you haven’t turned on GDS NDC with your TMC or you aren’t accessing NDC content through other means, you’re not offering the lowest logical fare,” says Hamer.

Content also should include, in the case of airfares, details like change fees, refund policy, baggage charges, WiFi, entertainment, seats. “We’ve got a long list of about 15 attributes that we want to make sure we’re presenting with every offer,” says Klee. “Depending on if it’s coming from a GDS or a direct connect, sometimes we get all of those right from the source, and it’s easy. But that’s rarely the case. Usually, we get only [some], and we have to figure out what other data sources we [have to] use to augment what we got back from the provider to deliver to our customers a consistent experience.”

But let’s say a tool does access the required content. It then needs to display it. To make it consistent across suppliers, “at a high level, it requires the OBT to do some work to bring parity to the results no matter where the content comes from,” says Klee.

What should that display look like? For Hamer, users should be able to comparison shop, and that might require accessing that content through multiple channels. And this is where Digital ID comes into play again.

“That’s going to drive a lot more into the booking process and even self-service. [Users] will probably get access to a lot more options at the point of sale,” she says.

Over the past month or two, Concur brought back its Matrix view, which about 15 per cent to 20 per cent of customers wanted, says Concur Travel president Charlie Sultan. “In terms of display, new Concur offers a more consumer-friendly view. It’s evolved a lot more and looks like a consumer website to some extent.”

Sultan says it still includes policy management attributes, preferred carrier attributes, but as opposed to seeing one fare for each carrier, you see multiple fares and you’re able to roll over the attributes. Concur is also pulling in some data from RouteHappy to show what is available for each of the different products.

“It’s available through both desktop and mobile, which is an enhancement to the display on both,” says Sultan. “It includes sustainability attributes that weren’t necessarily visible before, and then a lot of heavy filtering options that are there for the customer to help them get to what they’re looking for a lot faster.”

Next, travellers make their ticket choices. But the OBT doesn’t fulfill the booking. That typically happens by the TMC or by the airline, depending on the type of ticket and how it’s being purchased.

In many instances, particularly when a booking goes through a GDS connection, the TMC does the fulfillment and captures the data. But with a direct connect on an NDC ticket where the airline fulfills the booking, for example, how does the TMC get that information? That, too, depends on the tool and its set-up.

It also can vary by airline. “United, for example, allows servicing from both the TMC and from United, but other airlines, you have to verify with [them] as to who actually owns it,” says Hamer. “When it is the GDS and the TMC owns the GDS agreement, irrespective of the OBT, then [the TMC] would be doing the ticketing or fulfillment. But NDC just puts a wrench in it.”

In some cases, the OBT will create a passive Passenger Name Record (PNR), which is the repository for all things related to the booking, including financial transactions, and the TMC will see that to know about the booking and get that information into reports and duty of care.

“But it’s a fraught process because that PNR isn’t synced with anything,” says Klee. “If something changes, no one’s going to know about it.”

That scenario can happen when a traveller makes the initial booking through an OBT but makes a change on a supplier website or app, which then breaks and gives the booking back to the supplier and the TMC loses visibility. If there is a disruption and the traveller can’t self-service, they call the TMC, but the agent then often needs to call the supplier to do the servicing, which can get costly for corporations.

For TMCs that don’t want a passive PNR, “it goes to our Trip API and from there, they can sort of view or claim the record,” says Sultan. Concur in its updated version of its OBT has added GDS NDC content from Amadeus and Sabre in key geographies, he adds, with Travelport to be added “in short order.”

New entrant Spotnana, backed by Concur founder Steve Singh who now runs Madrona Ventures, operates differently and is “more than an OBT,” says founder and chief product officer Sarosh Waghmar. The company’s infrastructure was built as a platform in the cloud and pulls in content through various sources, but not aggregators, so it does not rely on GDSs for NDC content or for record management. It has an offer-and-order management system, and it can display any content and have anyone service it as well, Waghmar added, meaning if a traveller initially books through Spotnana then makes a change on a supplier website or app, all that information remains intact for the TMC.

“The difference between us and anybody else who connects on NDC is we don’t go through aggregators,” he says. “We’re the database. We are the warehouse where everything is stored and consumed. It’s even facing the agent who is working and knows exactly what [a traveller] is clicking on. That’s the fundamental difference between us and anybody. I’m helping the servicing aspect of it all in that one screen. No more disparate systems, so the cost of servicing, all of that reduces.”