Travelport outlined details of its new global brand vision and strategy

Differentiated content and product offering results in need to redefine vision and definitions of business operations

Langley, UK, 2014-6-10 — /Travel PR News/ — Travelport, a leading travel commerce marketplace providing distribution, technology, payment and other solutions for the $7 trillion global travel and tourism industry, has today outlined details of its new global brand vision and strategy.  In a bid to more accurately describe the role Travelport now plays in the global travel distribution chain, where it has strategically invested over recent years, the new vision is a significant departure from historical GDS terminology and language.

The new company vision was developed to more closely align with what Travelport now offers the industry, rather than over 40 years ago when it was first developed by airlines and largely concentrated only on basic air transaction processing.  The new vision, ‘The platform that is redefining travel commerce for our customers,’ reflects this evolution.Travelport’s differentiated content and product offering now includes:

  • eNett payment solutions, which are fully integrated into the travel agent’s desktop and workflows to enable secure, electronic payments between travel agencies and travel providers.
  • Enhanced air content distributed through its platform to include fares and ancillary products from low cost carriers as well as network carriers through the same point of sale and workflow management tools. With the addition of Ryanair content at the end of the March 2014, Travelport is now positioned as the only major company in this space to be able to sell content for all of the world’s top 10 airlines.
  • Expanded hotel content offering the ability to travel agencies to make real time reservations for more than 580,000 individual hotel properties, again, leading in this space.
  • Airline merchandising providing functionality which allows airlines to connect to Travelport, and distribute their ancillary products as well as their fares, through either traditional fare filing methods such as ATPCo, or via XML APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).

As part of the brand re-launch, Travelport has also taken the opportunity to more clearly define its key business activities by re-naming its two main operational areas. First, its Travel Commerce Platform, including merchandising, reservations, payments and workflow management, which accounted for 95% of its revenue in quarter one this year, and second, its Technology Services business through which it provides critical IT services to airlines for their internal and direct channel use.

The Travel Commerce Platform revenue is further classified according to its source as either Air or Beyond Air. Beyond Air, which includes revenues from hospitality, advertising and payments, now accounts for around 19% of Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform revenue and continues to grow at a strong pace.

Through Technology Services, Travelport provides systems management and IT services to airlines, most notably Delta, as well as some key component IT solutions for vital airline functions such as shopping, faring, the issuance of accountable documents, interline exchanges and departure control.

Gordon Wilson, President and CEO of Travelport explained the rationale for the new brand vision and operational definitions:

“We’ve evolved the way we both distribute content for our travel provider customers and made it more easily accessible and bookable by our travel agency customers.   We have invested in, and developed our business to address the changing needs of the travel distribution chain, which we are now articulating through our new, and more up to date, brand proposition that clearly explains what we offer our customers.  We have encapsulated this  as: ‘Redefining travel commerce for our customers’ and we look forward to continuing to deliver on this vision and helping our customers grow their businesses in the months and years ahead.”

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About Travelport (www.travelport.com)
Travelport is a leading travel commerce marketplace providing distribution, technology, payment and other solutions for the $7 trillion global travel and tourism industry.  With a presence in over 170 countries, approximately 3,600 employees and 2013 net revenue of $2.1 billion, Travelport is a privately owned company comprised of:

  • Our Travel Commerce Platform, through which we facilitate travel commerce by connecting the world’s leading travel providers with online and offline travel buyers in our proprietary business to business (“B2B”) travel commerce marketplace.   As travel industry demands evolve, we are utilizing our Travel Commerce Platform to redefine the electronic distribution and merchandising of airline core and ancillary products, as well as extending our reach into the growing world of travel commerce beyond air, including to hotel, car rental, rail, cruise-line and tour operators. In addition, we have leveraged our domain expertise in the travel industry to design a pioneering B2B payment solution that addresses the needs of travel intermediaries to efficiently and securely settle travel transactions. We also utilize the extensive data managed by our platform to provide an array of additional services, such as advertising solutions, subscription services, business intelligence data services, and marketing-oriented analytical tools to travel agencies, travel providers and other travel data users.
  • Our Technology Services, through which we provide critical IT services to airlines, such as shopping, ticketing, departure control and other solutions, enabling them to focus on their core business competencies and reduce costs. We manage reservations, inventory management and other related critical systems for Delta Air Lines.

Media Contacts
Claire Ramage
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 288 721
E-mail:  claire.ramage@travelport.com

Kate Aldridge
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 288720
E-mail: kate.aldridge@travelport.com