IATA is collaborating with a coalition of national travel agency associations on a study to look at options that could benefit travel consultants as the New Distribution Capability (NDC) XML standard is considered for implementation by airlines and technology providers.
An independent consultant will be jointly appointed by IATA and the coalition – known as The Group – to conduct the study.
The coalition comprises associations representing agencies based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the US including the American Society of Travel Agents; the Association of Brazilian Travel Agents; the Association of Canadian Travel Agents: the Association of South African Travel Agents Association (ASATA); The Australian Federation Travel Agents (AFTA); the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand; and the Travel Agents Federation of India.
“With the full set of NDC ‘end-to-end’ schemas now available, this collaboration between IATA and The Group is a great opportunity to jointly understand the benefits and implications of NDC from the perspective of travel (consultants),” said Yanik Hoyles, IATA programme director, NDC.
“As a better understanding and acceptance of NDC by airlines becomes apparent, it is timely to now undertake this research study to investigate how travel (consultants) might benefit from the implementation of the standard,” said Jayson Westbury, CEO of AFTA.
“The Group has come together to provide a conduit to a range of markets and travel (consultants) across the globe to allow the global agency community with a valuable piece of research,” said Otto De Vries, CEO of ASATA.
The study will seek to understand the impacts of NDC for travel consultants; explore options to overcome possible obstacles to successful NDC implementation by the parties within the travel value chain; and provide scenarios of the potential funding models for the transaction of airfares and airline ancillary products via the travel consultant channel using the NDC standard.
It will also evaluate the issues from the perspectives of large, medium and small agencies, including both business- and leisure-travel focused agencies, plus the views from key stakeholders across the distribution value chain such as airlines, global distribution systems, travel technology firms and providers of corporate booking tools.
