Travelport Unveils New Merchandising Platform

Travelport has introduced the Travelport Merchandising Platform that transforms the way airlines deliver their products and the way that those products are displayed to travel agents.

The platform enables travel agents access the full range of airline products, including ancillaries, in their familiar, consolidated and integrated workflow that assists them in making the best informed choice for their customers.

Through the new platform, airlines can differentiate and distribute their full suite of products and services, including fares and ancillaries with complete consistency across all channels.

According to Travelport, the new merchandising platform provides three retailing solutions:

– Travelport Aggregated Shopping (launching now) that consolidates within the same screen shopping results for traditional carriers who connect through ATPCO and those with whom Travelport has an API connection so there is no need to duplicate shopping requests and compare across several screens. (Travelport said it is the only GDS that allows agencies to shop both types of carriers in a single display and booking flow.)
– Travelport Ancillary Services (already available) allows travel agents to sell airline ancillaries within their existing workflow so there is no need to navigate to the airline’s website to offer the full range of products for carriers that choose to do so.
– Travelport Rich Content and Branding (launching in late 2013) will give travel agents all of the information on an airline’s product within the booking flow.

Current users of the Merchandising Platform include Air Canada, KLM, British Airways, Alitalia, Air New Zealand and Aegean Airlines.

“Travelport Merchandising Platform is a ‘sea change’ in the travel industry and truly differentiates us from our competitors,” Derek Sharp, managing director, Global Distribution & Sales, Travelport, said.

“We are the only GDS encouraging airlines to connect in any way they want, in order to deliver their full product portfolio with equal impact across all distribution channels,” he added.

Travelport Aggregated Shopping launches with EasyJet

Earlier this month, Travelport launched Aggregated Shopping with EasyJet and now Travelport-connected agents can sell all EasyJet fares and ancillaries, including those that were previously only available on the carrier’s website.