APAC: A dynamic growth region for NDC - the future of travel retailing - and now with various airlines, over 2,000 agents and corporations connected through Amadeus to it to prove it.

Despite the pandemic’s impact on travel, the industry’s focus on NDC has not stopped. As the industry explores new ways to travel, we believe technology innovations like NDC will help the world recover.

In fact, 2021 has already been a year of broad deployment of NDC-enabled airline content across the globe, and here in the Asia Pacific region, we have reached some key NDC milestones.

It was an early New Year celebration for us when Singapore Airlines made content available via NDC through the Amadeus Travel Platform. When Singapore Airlines first embraced Amadeus NDC [X] program back in 2018, it was focused on digital transformation, enhancing retailing capabilities, and creating a tailormade experience for its customers.

Starting in 2021, Singapore Airlines has deepened its NDC commitment to modern retailing by making its content and offers available to travel sellers through the Amadeus Travel Platform. Travel agents worldwide connected to the Amadeus Travel Platform can shop, book, and pay for all Singapore Airlines offers made available through NDC as part of the airline’s ‘KrisConnect’ program. This differentiated content includes ancillary services such as seat selection, excess baggage, special fares, and personalized merchandising offers for loyalty members and corporate travelers, as well as plans to bring more content, such as dynamic fares, to the fore.

At Amadeus, we are committed to the global industrialization of NDC. We know the travel industry will need NDC to keep up with the demand of the modern digital consumer. And in Asia when the pandemic starts to show signs of recovery, more and more of these tech-savvy consumers will want to travel.

Fortunately, now that the foundations of NDC have been laid, a whole new world of modern online retailing in the travel sector is ripe for the taking. And just like Singapore Airlines, many more from the Asia Pacific travel industry have joined the NDC roll out these past six-months.

Qantas, the flag carrier of Australia has started offering NDC content through the Amadeus Travel Platform to pilot travel sellers to test booking and servicing. These select travel agencies can shop, book, and pay for NDC offers sourced from the Qantas Distribution Platform. It includes ancillary services, special price offers, and fully integrated post-booking servicing like cancelling, and refunding an NDC booking. It was a significant step forward with our long-time partner Qantas, as this pilot will help more agency partners in the region access richer content through the Qantas Distribution Platform to deliver tailormade experiences for customers.

Moving onto our travel sellers, earlier this year the largest online travel agency in Taiwan adopted Amadeus’ Travel API to deliver more personalized and differentiated travel experience. ezTravel, implemented the cutting-edge NDC solution that gives online travel agencies in APAC and the world, access to new content and fares from airlines via NDC connectivity.

Partnering with the Amadeus NDC [X] program, ezTravel now powers the new standard, garners NDC and non-NDC content, as well as having access to the main servicing capabilities that an agency requires one a booking via NDC has been carried out, such as changes, cancellations, or adding ancillaries.

Being one of the first OTAs to adopt our NDC-enabled web services solution, ezTravel became an instant trailblazer for many more OTAs in greater China and beyond, establishing that it can embrace the standard for empowering the customers to shop, order, and pay for flights and related services, and to add ancillaries and services to bookings.

NDC empowers the customer and is helping our industry realize the benefits of personalization. GM Tours & Travel, one of the largest retail travel agencies in Thailand, announced its partnership with Amadeus last month, looking to deliver differentiated and personalized travel experiences. NDC allows the agency to easily access in real-time information related to safety and hygiene during customer journeys, which has become a critical factor travel recovery. It also allows the agency to shift its focus off and concentrate on bringing the best competitive offerings to its clients, keeping them happy with a seamless journey.

When customers in the Southeast Asia region regain confidence to travel, they’ll expect service that goes above and beyond what was the norm. With this change, travel sellers need to think creatively about how to build better experiences, adopting technology and new approaches.

In Indonesia, tiket.com, one of the fastest growing online travel agencies with more than 17 million customers, has seized the opportunity to innovate and will be the first OTA to adopt NDC in South East Asia, in a landmark partnership with Amadeus which will enable its customers increased options, via a full range of NDC content. tiket.com is now able to access NDC offers from carriers which are connected on the Amadeus Travel Platform, including special seat selection, baggage, and other personalized offerings.

APAC is a dynamic region and is fast transforming digitally. Amadeus NDC is live in all APAC markets, so agencies can already enjoy the NDC content. We are seeing travel players across the region, transforming through NDC, allowing new retailing capabilities to truly differentiate content and give customers the best experiences.

Thanks to years of collaboration between IATA, airlines, travel sellers, and other industry partners around the world, NDC is now well on its way to being available across the world. At Amadeus, we’re fully engaged with the implementation of NDC-enabled solutions and making content via NDC available worldwide so all travel sellers in Asia Pacific can access this new, richer airline content.

Frederic Saunier, Regional Vice President, Airline Distribution Sales, Asia Pacific, Amadeus

www.amadeus.com