Visual merchandisers in the retail world can do wonders for getting people to pause on their hurried journeys along pavements and turn them into potential customers with an eye-catching display. Yet if a would-be shopper enters the shop to find that the shop has only a few, unfancied items on the shelves then the shop has failed.
It is the same in the world of travel management — both the shopping experience and the content have to be good to ensure that the customer buys.
It is a point that will be at front of mind this week with a number of announcements around both content and shopping.
FCM has announced the launch of MarketPlace, its "travel content gateway". The TMC says the MarketPlace offers "specialist fares from 420 airline partners, 112 global rail providers, and car hire deals in 97 countries" as well as "20 million room rates including 5 million negotiated rates at 650,000 properties globally and 2.3 million exclusive promotional room night rates at 60 hotel brands worldwide".
This content comes from a range of sources — via GDS but also via "disrupters and new entrants to the distribution landscape to ensure our customers have full availability and visibility", including NDC.
FCM's clients wanting to shop for this content will be able to do so through any of its booking channels, including via online booking tool or offline via a travel consultant.
Mick Heitzinger, `product director, FCM EMEA, says, "Travel content is vast and covers a huge array of choice which can be confusing for the corporate customer. Travel buyers are frequently concerned about whether they are getting the best value, the widest choice of air content, hotel rates, and so on, in order to achieve cost-savings and ROI on their travel programme. At FCM, we have recognised the need to deliver all types of travel content from multiple sources in a way that the corporate wants to see it and consume it, whether manager, traveller or booker."
Also this week, Amadeus has announced a new API for agencies to give them access to a wider range of content. Amadeus Travel API, co-designed with Travix, incorporates NDC content and is being adopted by a number of clients including American Express GBT and BCD Travel.
As well as content, the API will offer a "simplified workflow of shop, order, pay, ensuring a smoother experience which mirrors the customer journey".
Earlier in the year, the travel management disruptor TripActions became the first company to implement ATPCO's Next Generation Storefront (NGS) standard. This shopping technology enables bookings to shop for air fares on a like-for-like basis.
The rush for content in the world of business travel has been going on for years but what we are seeing now is more like the Amazonification of business travel; like the former bookseller turned universal online department store, companies have come to realise that they need breadth of choice but also a way of shopping for it so that finding what you need is not onerous.
It is also worth noting that this is not just about NDC. FCM says that its MarketPlace is filled not just by NDC but also by "a team of 500 global travel procurement specialists, one of the largest content teams in the travel industry".
The future may mean we have to embrace Amazon's cocktail of content and great shopping tools but is there still a place for people in this vision?