While travel managers believe that NDC tools will help improve the traveller booking experience (64%), they remain very concerned about the challenges NDC will make to their managed travel programmes, according to a new survey.
The Evolution of Air Distribution, a survey of 218 travel managers from around the world carried out for ACTE and American Express GBT, says that almost nine in ten travel managers believe that NDC will harm cost control and policy compliance.
Despite the advent of new NDC-based technologies, travel managers are not in a rush to open up new booking channels, says the study.
It says 44% of travel managers have no plans to expand booking channels; just 19% say they have introduced new channels or plan to do so in the next two years.
The online booking tool looks set to remain the platform of choice for travel managers, as shown in the research below.
One of the key problems that many hope NDC will solve is the payment of ancillaries, which is a growing chunk of air spend. Travel managers report that just under half of travellers are using airline websites to buy ancillaries at least some of the time.
The top five ancillary items that travel managers are reporting are as shown below:
Note: Respondents could choose more than one answer
A worrying statistic from the report is that 48% of travel managers are not currently tracking spend on ancillaries.
So while cost control is clearly a concern, ancillaries are a growing area of leakage. Travel buyers need to adapt.