As the world continues to navigate the effects of the pandemic, the travel industry recognises NDC as a key element to rebuild travel and keep up with the actual needs, demands and shifting preferences of the modern digital consumer. Amadeus is strengthening its NDC content capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region with various partnerships across airlines and travel sellers. This will enable a delivery of richer, more tailored and relevant content through end-to-end integration for a simpler, seamless customer experience.
Amadeus is committed to the industrialisation of NDC across the globe. In APAC, Amadeus is making significant headway with its airline partners such as Singapore Airlines, with its content and offers now 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. Meanwhile, Qantas, recently partnered with Amadeus to deliver Qantas’ NDC-sourced content to pilot travel sellers to test booking and servicing through the Amadeus Travel Platform.
The partnerships also extend to travel sellers in the region. Most recently, Riya Travel, one of Amadeus’ long-term partners and one of India’s largest retail agencies has implemented NDC to enhance its retailing capabilities. In Indonesia, tiket.com, one of the fastest growing online travel agencies in the country becomes the first online travel agency to adopt NDC in South East Asia. Amadeus has also partnered with ezTravel, the largest online travel agency in Taiwan to adopt Amadeus’ NDC-enabled Travel API where ezTravel can access aggregated NDC and non-NDC content.
Frederic Saunier, Asia-Pacific Vice President of Airline Distribution Sales, Amadeus, says, “NDC, is truly here. It is exciting to see that Asia Pacific is moving fast on NDC deployments, showing just how dynamic the region is, with growth and speed in digital transformation. We continue to be in discussions with airlines and travel sellers across the region for new and expanded NDC partnerships, something which we’re very excited about. The trust and commitment of our partners is a testament towards our promise to deliver retailing capabilities and truly differentiated content in order to give travelers the best experiences.”
“As the travel industry rebuilds, we believe technology innovations like NDC will be key to recovery. It is no secret that our digital-first travelers want richer, relevant and tailor-made content; the kind of experience they already see in many other parts of their lives. Through technology like NDC, we can power great journeys for travelers. NDC is a strategic priority for Amadeus and our goal is to make NDC-sourced content available to all our travel sellers around the world over the course of this year,” Saunier added.
Amadeus has long-standing partnerships on NDC with airlines, travel agencies and corporations around the world. Earlier this year, American Airlines and Amadeus renewed their content distribution agreement. NDC-enabled content from American Airlines, Air France and KLM is already live in the Amadeus Travel Platform and will be available globally before the end of year. Meanwhile, International Airlines Group (IAG) and Amadeus also partnered to distribute the airline group’s NDC offering. The content from British Airways and Iberia, will be available to travel agents through the Amadeus Travel Platform in Q4 this year.