Solving the content fragmentation puzzle
The divergence of airline strategies, increasing adoption of NDC, the rise of low-cost carriers (LCCs), and the surge of new travel tech players all have a knock-on effect: aggregating and integrating content takes more time and investment than ever before.
Many agency leaders feel that these evolving distribution dynamics mean they have no choice but to carry the burden of content aggregation themselves to stay competitive. Our perspective is different. We know that agencies achieve a competitive advantage by working with a multi-source technology provider, one that offers normalized content and intelligent capabilities across all trip components: air, lodging, car hire, and rail.
That’s where Sabre excels. We manage technical complexity at scale so agencies can focus on their core value proposition.
Content fragmentation is accelerating
The pace of fragmentation has increased in recent years. Technology maturity and distribution strategies vary widely across the industry and many agencies and corporate buyers are keen to access content as soon as airlines make it available. However, it’s important to make sure this content is fully integrated end-to-end in existing systems for seamless servicing and reporting.
NDC content
Just a few years ago, only a handful of airlines were distributing content in the indirect channel via NDC. Today, more than 100 airlines are at various stages of NDC development, 73 of which are registered on the official IATA Airline Retailing Maturity (ARM) index.
Ten years ago, LCCs represented 28% of passengers boarded, five years ago it was 32%, today it’s 34% and in 2037 it’s expected to reach 53%.
LCC content
The continued rise of low-cost carriers (LCCs) and hybrid carriers has also been a significant contributor to fragmentation. Ten years ago, these carriers represented less than one-third of passengers boarded. That number has been increasing every year and is expected to overtake full-service carriers by 2037.
Traditionally favoring direct distribution, carriers around the world including Southwest, easyJet, and Air Asia pioneered unbundled products, dynamic fares, and personalized offers. To access this content, agencies need to consider as many APIs as there are LCCs.
Non-air content
Content fragmentation doesn’t just include air. Agencies also need to sell the complete trip; capitalizing on opportunities to cross-sell hotel accommodation, car hire, and rail journeys. Each of these add more pieces to the already complex puzzle with seemingly countless suppliers and intermediaries.
Content aggregators
Beyond supplier dynamics, new aggregator startups are entering the market and existing aggregators are growing. These travel tech providers typically provide access to a range of travel suppliers, including direct connections with NDC carriers and regional LCCs, while sourcing most of their content via Sabre or another GDS. However, content aggregation is more than just a numbers game. Full integration with agency systems and other providers is crucial to ensure fast shopping, effective orchestration, and efficient operations.
Fragmentation fuels complexity
Aggregating disparate content isn’t a one-off activity. It’s a time-consuming, ongoing task for tech/engineering, product, and operations teams to manage. Failing to do so effectively means incomplete or inaccurate shopping results, disjointed trip management, and siloed data. This leads to lower conversion rates, dissatisfied customers, higher operating costs, and missed business opportunities.
Solving the fragmentation puzzle is multi-faceted, made more complex when agencies work with multiple sources of travel content and when some of those pieces look very similar. For example, NDC APIs with different versions and similar but distinct interpretations of the IATA standard.
The work doesn’t stop at acquisition. Agencies need to streamline all processes and workflows for effective offer and order management.
Access broad content
- Negotiate commercial and technical terms and service-level agreements
- Build API connections with unique documentation and data schemas
- Maintain connections with bug fixes and API updates
Enable comparison shopping
- Aggregate content and product information into a shopping engine
- Normalize and de-duplicate content (e.g. EDIFACT and NDC offers from the same airline)
- Present relevant offers including corporate policy-compliant options
BOOK AND MANAGE TRIPS
- Provide bookable content, ensuring accurate prices and availability
- Automate and enable self-service changes, cancellations, and refunds
- Enable reliable duty of care
Uncover business insights
- Integrate multiple data sources with mid/back-office systems
- Analyze siloed data on travelers, bookings, loyalty, and industry dynamics
- Identify trends to better tailor future offers
Maintain system performance
- Optimize shopping and booking engines to improve speed
- Ensure systems are robust and globally scalable
- Protect customer and transaction data with strong security measures
The initial setup takes a minimum of a few weeks and can last six to twelve months or longer. Software engineers, product managers, commercial and operations leaders need to be involved, all with niche expertise in travel technology. The costs quickly add up with resources assigned to the ongoing project instead of focusing on agencies’ core value proposition.
The investment needed to manage these activities multiplies when dealing with direct supplier connections and intermediaries with various API versions, schemas, formats, and account credentials.
The efficient multi-source solution
We’re expert puzzle solvers. We have strong experience tackling tough travel tech challenges, in collaboration with technology partners, suppliers, and sellers. The result is our efficient platform for agencies to access multi-source content with a lower cost of ownership than self-managed options. We also understand the future solution and we’re investing heavily to expand our marketplace, addressing the continued industry fragmentation.
35 NDC airlines and 100 new LCCs targeted for launch by the end of 2024
Multi-source content
Today, we aggregate a critical mass of content from multiple sources, including ATPCO/EDIFACT, NDC, LCC, hotel, car, and rail options. We’re constantly adding new content into our marketplace, with 35 NDC airlines and 100 new LCCs targeted for launch by the end of 2024.
Multi-source capabilities
Advanced business logic normalizes, de-duplicates, preferences, and presents content regardless of source. That means all relevant offers are displayed on the same screen with high-value content prioritized and product information available for easy comparison shopping. This happens in a split second to maximize conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
End-to-end workflows, post-booking automation solutions, and integrations with mid/back-office solutions streamline manual work for seamless shopping, booking, servicing, and reporting. This enables cost-effective servicing, improves workflow efficiency, and gives customers flexibility to change travel plans on their terms.
Impactful AI/ML solutions
Sabre Travel AI™, powered by Google technology, takes this all to the next level. Unlike other providers, we’ve deeply embedded advanced AI/ML capabilities into our systems to analyze more data, forecast trends, predict customer behavior, personalize offers, and run experiments at scale. Agencies benefit from increased revenue opportunities and lower operating costs to stay competitive. For example, increasing attachment rates with Lodging AI and improving low fare efficacy using Global Shopping within Shopping AI.
Building for the future
Which agencies are best positioned for the future: those devoting resources to addressing fragmentation themselves or those focused on their core value propositions and competitive differentiators? We strongly believe it’s the latter. While the increasing complexity can’t be streamlined quickly, we deeply understand the sense of urgency and we’re assembling the missing puzzle pieces so agency leaders can invest in what matters to their business.
