Corporate Travel Summit: Technology, diversity and the economy dominate first Continued from page 48
this information [and] no restrictions on how often the CAA can request it.” Azam added: “It’s a huge
amount of data requested – booking data, commission to agents, passengers’ medical data. What will the CAA do with that data? Are they sharing it? How long will they retain it?” She argued: “You’re talking
about commercially sensitive data and personal data. I would want to know where the CAA intends to store the data, how it will secure it and who will pay the cost of a data breach.” Some Atol holders may
require systems upgrades to provide this data, she said, and pointed out: “If the CAA makes a request, you would only have three days to comply. That is not enough time.” Budge responded by insisting:
“It’s a consultation. It’s looking at what can be delivered. That is the point of a consultation. No one is going to set this up in a way that breaks the law.” He argued: “When we’ve
spoken to businesses, they haven’t raised a problem so long as there is adequate lead-in time and a transition. [But] if businesses don’t have the information, that is a problem. How are they running their business?” Budge explained: “We had
problems with [the failure of] Thomas Cook when we had to bring customers back who required oxygen to travel and airlines said, ‘We can’t handle that’. We need to know when an individual has a medical condition. We need assurance you can provide the data.” The consultation document
included 25 pages of data requirements.
GDS bosses clash over rate of progress on NDC
The rate of progress on New Distribution Capability technology has been called into question, with senior GDS figures clashing over whether most of the technical challenges have been solved. Sabre head of corporate accounts for the UK and Ireland Richard Viner told the Corporate Travel Summit in London last week: “In six months, we won’t be talking about NDC because every GDS will have all the fare categories with all of the content.” He added: “In six months, it will be solved.” Viner said the issues facing the
sector are now “about fare parity, not about NDC”, saying: “What customers are asking us is, ‘When are you going to deliver fare parity?’” NDC is the technical standard
for distribution of airline content via intermediaries. But airlines and intermediaries are at different stages of developing NDC capabilities, while leading carriers increasingly make many fare categories available only through NDC-enabled channels or direct.
How do we stop
trying to manage complexity in the background and focus on the front end?
Global distribution systems
(GDSs) can increasingly provide NDC content to travel management companies and agencies, but access requires upgraded technology and agreements, and servicing NDC bookings can remain a challenge. Jack Ramsey, chief executive of
travel management data-processing tech company TripStax, suggested: “What airlines want to put in front of agencies, they can now.” But Kyle Moore, general manager
of Travelport corporate travel booking software division Deem, disagreed. He told the conference: “I would love to believe we won’t be talking about NDC in six
months. But I don’t believe that.” Moore argued: “Corporate
travellers don’t know what an NDC fare is – they don’t use it.” Paul Dear, Concur regional
vice-president for supplier services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, described “an omnichannel approach” as essential and said: “The clever part is aggregating [content].” However, Ramsey argued
“Aggregation is the easier component. You can go to the airlines, to the GDSs, to rail providers. The problem comes with [having] more and more aggregators and with the offline/ online world we still have not got on top of. How do we get to a stage where we stop trying to manage complexity in the background and concentrate on the front end?” Pat McDonagh, chief executive
of Clarity Business Travel, insisted: “There are still big challenges around aggregating and curating content, and that is what corporates want us to manage.”
‘Corporate travel managers don’t want to lose control’
Corporate travel companies are grappling with increasing personalisation in distribution at the same time as trying to address the long-standing issue of unmanaged bookings. Sabre’s Richard Viner
Panellists
said: “There are problems we need to solve from 20 years ago when 40% to 50% of bookings were out of channel, and it has not changed.” He noted: “Corporate travel
buyers need to capture all these out-of-channel bookings.” Travelport’s Kyle Moore
46 13 MARCH 2025
argued: “We see a personalisation gap in travel technology compared with property tech or fintech.” But he argued: “Corporate travel managers are incredibly sensitive about what you’re going to show to their travellers. There is a mass of changes happening [and] they don’t want to lose control.” Jack Ramsey of TripStax
said: “Personalisation scares people, but it can be well controlled. Spotify doesn’t tell me what to listen to unless I ask it to.”
travelweekly.co.uk
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