Northstar

The Indispensable Travel Industry Read Trends Highlight Chan Brothers Travel unveils 2014 trend forecast Vol. 5 Issue 1 | January 2014 | www.travelweeklyweb.com | Published by Travel & Meetings Group, Contineo Media Pte Ltd Country Focus Tune Hotels celebrates 2014 Page 10 with new openings Country Focus Travelport's aggressive product launch strategy to continue in 2014 Malaysian and Indonesian LCCs battle for supremacy Page 10 Its Rich Content and Branding product is scheduled for launch early this year. Technology innovations in travel are developing at a rapid pace, making it an exciting time for the industry. In the last year travel technology firm Travelport has developed and launched a number of innovative industry-leading technology solutions to change the travel distribution landscape for travel suppliers, travel agencies and ultimately, the traveler. Travelport Merchandising Platform (TMP) The Travelport Merchandising Platform was launched by Travelport in April 2013. The product represents a new era in distribution, enabling airlines to go to market with their full suite of ancillary products, and providing total consistency in how these are presented across all distribution channels. The platform allows airlines to differentiate their products whilst enabling travel agencies and consumers to fully understand and compare offers from airlines. TMP includes three retailing components – the recently launched Aggregated Shopping, the already available Ancillary Services and the soon to be launched Rich Content and Branding. Aggregated Shopping launched in Asia in December 2013. This component of the TMP and gives airlines the ability to distribute their content in the way they choose to, and travel agents the ease of selling through a consistent, efficient workflow. Aggregated Shopping consolidates within the same screen shopping results for traditional carriers who connect through ATPCO and those with whom Travelport has an API connection. Also now available as a component of the platform, Ancillary Services enables travel agents to sell airline ancillaries such as lounge passes, seats and bags, within their existing workflow rather than by booking on an airline website. The highly progressive Travelport Rich Content and Branding is scheduled to be launched early 2014. This component allows airlines to market and retail their products more effectively, by controlling how their product is visually presented and described to travel agents. Travelport recently unveiled this component of TMP at the CAPA World Aviation Summit in Amsterdam in November 2013 using pilot content from both Air New Zealand and Delta. Since the launch of the Travelport Merchandising Platform, there have been many carriers who have already adopted technologies under the TMP umbrella, including major carriers such as Air Canada, British Airways, easyJet, KLM, Norwegian, Jet2.com, transavia.com. Continued on Page 4

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