ATPCO to Provide Flight Pricing and Retailing Content to TravelSky
Share
The expansion of ATPCO and TravelSky’s partnership will help airlines differentiate their service offering via the Chinese global distribution system (GDS).
ATPCO and TravelSky, a provider of IT solutions for China’s aviation and travel industry, today announced that they’ve signed a five-year deal. The agreement means the Chinese GDS is now a subscriber to ATPCO’s basic pricing and shopping content as well as retailing solutions, comprised of Routehappy rich content, ancillaries, and next-generation storefront standards that are currently in development.
“It’s an exciting new chapter of our partnership with TravelSky, going beyond ATPCO’s integral pricing data to integrate Routehappy Rich Content and fundamentally enhance the shopping experience for over a billion potential customers in China,” said Robert Albert, executive vice-president of Retailing at ATPCO. “The differentiation of airline products is a worldwide trend and it’s transforming our industry forever.”
Customers throughout Asia will get a taste of the rich content experience once the integration completes the testing phase, allowing passengers to get a more complete sense of what a particular flight will be like. ATPCO has a working relationship with TravelSky that spans more than a decade, with the latest agreement signaling a big step forward for data integration.
“Having high quality, localized rich content flowing through common pipes and processes as the underlying fare content makes integration easier for them, as well,” said Jonathan Savitch, chief commercial officer of ATPCO. “It’s never easy to start these things from scratch: ATPCO’s regional presence and long-standing partnership accelerated rich content adoption by at least a year.”
“There’s a lot of pressure … from LCCs in Asia so the major airlines will need to better reveal their service and product differentiators.” – Jonathan Savitch, ATPCO
“TravelSky understands that e-commerce is the future of selling in the Chinese market, and we want to serve our customers with a richer experience through Routehappy rich content that ATPCO provides alongside its trusted fares and rules data,” said Qiongwei Sun, deputy general manager, Airline Business Department at TravelSky. “With simple API integrations we are able to give our flight shoppers a next-generation purchasing experience with deeper information about the ticket and product attributes related to the flight they are searching, translated in either traditional or simplified Chinese.”
Savitch said that Asian carriers have historically doubled down on the onboard experience, while not pushing as hard into ancillary-revenue territory as their Western counterparts. However, he noted, “We do see that evolving. There’s a lot of pressure, intense competition, in fact, from LCCs in Asia so the major airlines will need to better reveal their service and product differentiators. Distribution channels have a stake in this, too so it makes sense that all sides invest in a better flight shopping experience.”