Travelport has operated three systems – Worldspan, Galileo and Apollo – that allow airlines to distribute airline tickets to travel agents for years. The UK-based travel technology company announced this week that it is optimizing the technology with something called Travelport +.
“It’s part of our multi-year investment in next generation technology,” said Jen Catto, chief marketing officer. “We bring rigor and discipline to the execution of this platform that we believe will be groundbreaking for the travel industry.”
Around 80 percent of Travelport’s agency customers use Galileo. Therefore, the company uses the main components of Galileo as the chassis or foundation for Travelport +. But even Galileo customers will see “new, different, and better features” as they upgrade to Travelport + over time, executives said.
Worldspan and Apollo customers will be migrating to Travelport + “in the next few years,” executives said. “A number of large and small agencies and supplier partners” have already received the first upgrade.
Travelport travel agents have used a reservations desktop interface called Smartpoint for years, which provides both a graphical interface and command line access. This user interface, essentially used by agents whether the underlying technology is Galileo, Worldspan or Apollo, will remain the same for Travelport + in the near future.
The announcement was mainly about changes to the sanitary facilities, so to speak, but the fancy fittings are coming soon, the executives promised.
A redesigned platform interface enables agencies to find and compare merchandising tools faster from multiple sources, as well as customize storefronts for those selling online.
This will make the company more efficient by focusing the software developer’s work on improving a single system rather than essentially waiting three. However, moving to a single tech stack will take time.
“We have a very strict plan to move our customers over the next few years,” said Moore.
Seeking efficiency through automation
For travel agents, perhaps the biggest promise of the entire Travelport + effort over time is a wider range of tools to automate time-consuming tasks. The aim is to remove manual processes that agencies use to maintain, manage, support and match reservations from the front office through the back office.
“For example, we are significantly improving the functionality around the automated exchange,” said Kyle Moore, head of customer strategy.
New marketing efforts
It’s rare for travel technologies of any size, from startups to established businesses, to think a lot about marketing or even have marketing directors. Last October, Travelport created the position of Chief Marketing Officer and appointed Catto to the role.
Earlier this year, Catto led a rebranding of Travelport aimed to reflect accelerated metabolism since the company was privatized in 2019 by private equity owners Siris Capital and a branch of hedge fund Elliott Management.
Unlike companies like Apple or Nike, Travelport does not sell services directly to consumers.
Would Travelpoort require a different approach to creating a marketing campaign than the type of campaign a consumer brand might launch?
Not necessarily, said Catto in an interview.
“Why do we think differently about B2B marketing?” Said Catto. “The decision makers we want to reach are also consumers. Their shopping habits and their expectations of digital interfaces are anchored in their daily life. So we think about it through this lens. We see a consumer mentality at the end of B2B [business to business] Frame.”
Catto and her team tried to put themselves in the mindset of a decision maker who is also a consumer.
“Our goal was to make it really easy for non-digital natives, not just technologists, to become modern retailers,” said Catto.
Some non-travel companies are classic companies that are also effective in marketing. Which ones inspired Catto and her team?
Catto mentions Salesforce, the customer relationship management software company that has taken a market- and event-based approach to growth that she’s been a fan of for nearly 15 years.
Catto also cited Telaria where it launched the Telaria brand to reposition Tremor Video as a sales-side video platform and a leader in connected television.
“It was an enterprise platform, but we put a lot of thought into the end user or viewer and worked backwards from that perspective for everything we created,” said Catto. “So we spent a very long time thinking about commercial breaks and what that experience was like when streaming television by examining viewer behavior to see if expectations would change in a different format.”
Catto argued that the model was analogous to Travelport in that Travelport helps suppliers and agencies access the demand.
“Look, I’m a B2B person,” explained Catto. “But I’m not going home and I want to be marketed as a B2B person. I expect brands that market me to be fluid and meet me in the flexible person I have. “
Travelport’s marketing team needs to target multiple audiences. Travel agencies are obvious, but they also need to be marketed to airlines, hoteliers, car rental companies, and other travel providers who have their content for sale on the company’s proverbial shelves.
Increasingly, these companies want to ensure that their brand is appropriately represented and differentiated when selling across all channels. Travelport’s rebranding is therefore trying to communicate that the company’s overhauled technology will make it easier for sellers to market their products, almost as if suppliers had full control at all stages.
“We’re introducing better tools to continuously use data and artificial intelligence to improve the shopping experience,” said Moore, global director of product proposals.
“Until now, you could move things up and down with brute force,” said Moore. “But we can now make it work automatically and seamlessly. Thanks to new functions, we can reliably predict how offers should be placed and displayed on the proverbial shelves. “
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Photo Credit: A Los Angeles International Airport employee monitors gate traffic. Travelport announced in March a multi-year extension of its full content agreement with American Airlines to distribute the airline’s content to travel agents. American Airlines