By Arlene Coyle, senior vice president of commercial for corporations, Amadeus
At this challenging time for the business travel industry, we must look for ways to rethink travel so that travel companies can bounce back strongly.
Even before Covid-19, we viewed the roll-out of New Distribution Capability (NDC) as essential to the long-term sustained growth of the travel sector.
NDC was launched by IATA to simplify the industry and to enable travel companies and airlines to serve both business and leisure customers more effectively, helping them to better differentiate products and improve time-to-market of new products, whilst providing a richer and transparent shopping experience.
Looking ahead to 2021, I want to debunk some commonly held myths and misconceptions around NDC so that organisations within the business travel sector can get the most out of this new technology.
Myth 1: Covid-19 means development of NDC is taking a backseat for travel companies
If anything, the pandemic and its impact have only added weight to the argument that NDC is vital. If the business travel industry is to set strong foundations for regrowth, then a key area such as retailing needs to stay front of mind.
A key trend of the last few years is that travellers want ever greater personalisation, and NDC helps this fast-evolving need. Recently, several airlines have made announcements about their latest developments in NDC – including major airlines such as Air France-KLM and American Airlines – thereby reaffirming their commitment to the standard.
Myth 2: Following the pandemic, NDC will only be useful for leisure travel
Despite Covid-19, we have seen many of our customers increase their focus on technologies that underpin corporate travel, including travel and expense (T&E) solutions.
Business travel will return. For both large and small companies, the value of face-to-face meetings, site visits, conferences and other get-togethers will continue to be critical to business.
In fact, a recent Amadeus survey of business and leisure travellers found that those traveling for business are less likely to be put off making trips due to concerns over safety than those traveling for leisure.
What will be key in this recovery is to ensure corporate travellers are provided with richer content that can be serviced effectively by their corporation and travel agent. NDC can be used to add extra features, such as information and reassurance about the safety and hygiene measures being taken throughout the journey.
NDC will be essential to help provide the level of personalisation that corporate travellers expect.
Myth 3: NDC is a static standard that is not able to adapt to the ‘new normal’
There is an industry-wide effort to ensure NDC becomes widely standardised, not just across airlines but across different providers. NDC is designed from the start to bring new levels of flexibility and creativity compared to the existing standards that it aims to replace.
A good example of this is how the NDC standard was adapted to meet new needs that came up during the pandemic, such as voucher-based refunds and new types of ancillary services.
Myth 4: Airlines are the main beneficiary of NDC
NDC benefits everyone throughout the travel chain, from business travellers to travel agents and airlines.
With NDC, travel agents and travel managers gain access to a wider range of content and more detailed information so they can offer their business traveller customers even greater choice and better service.
In addition, business travellers enjoy greater personalisation, improving their overall travel experience. This builds a deeper relationship between the business traveller, their travel manager or agent and the airlines they choose to fly with.
With travel volumes down at present now is an opportune time to make process improvements and upgrades.
Myth 5: NDC only brings technical advantages
NDC offers so much more to airlines and travel agents through elements such as dynamic pricing and personalised offers. This kind of rich content is absolutely required to serve the modern traveller.
NDC enables airlines to build offers when a request comes through from aggregators or agents, recognising each traveller or corporation and being able to adjust the offer accordingly. This means airlines can now better serve business or leisure travellers who might have requests around baggage, food options, WiFi, or any other onboard service.
Myth 6: NDC just creates complexity for business travel programmes
The goal of NDC is to provide industry standardisation and simplification, thus actually reducing complexity. Having access to more content and negotiated corporate bundles, for example, will make expense management processes and adherence to travel policies easier and more efficient.
As global air travel recovers, business travellers will be more concerned than ever about a smooth end-to-end experience, especially in relation to last-minute changes to travel plans or flight cancellations. In this sense, the disruption caused by the pandemic has reinforced the need for standardisation and collaboration across the business travel industry to ensure customers can be serviced effectively through all channels in real time.
NDC is going to play a critical role in the recovery and long-term sustained growth of the business travel sector. At Amadeus, we continue to work closely with our customers to make sure NDC addresses the needs of all stakeholders throughout the business supply chain.