We might as well admit it: it took a certain amount of courage to come and tackle the theme chosen for the GBTA France summer afterwork at the end of the day. "IATA's NDC standard: GBTA tackles the booking method of tomorrow". It's not exactly an enchanting title, especially in a travel sector used to more exoticism... However, the event organised on Tuesday evening at the Radisson Blu Boulogne Billancourt hotel was packed to capacity, testifying to the interest that the new standard introduced by the International Air Transport Association is beginning to arouse. And with good reason... Behind these three letters lies perhaps the biggest revolution in the sector since the advent of low-cost airlines. So it's easy to understand the educational efforts made by IATA over the last few months, initiated in a tense context with the leaders of the GBTA and the three GDSs: Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. "In 2013, there were a lot of misunderstandings around the NDC. We did a poor job of communicating about it", admitted Yanik Hoyles on Tuesday, stressing that "now everything is more transparent". The head of IATA's NDC programme once again pointed to the difficult task of making the project intelligible, and even attractive. And this even though, as Mr Hoyles reminds us, the new standard is not mandatory and is intended to be "agnostic", with each airline using it as it sees fit. A reminder that is far from insignificant, a few days after the announcement of the "GDS tax" at Lufthansa... "This standard NDC is in no way a way of bypassing the GDS.Its aim is not to promote direct sales. It is agnostic", Yanik Hoyles simply pointed out, when asked about the German company's controversial decision.
A vast field of possibilities
Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this instructive afterwork is the vast range of possibilities opened up by this new standard, which each company will be able to adapt as it sees fit. Carriers could thus benefit from the same responsiveness in the distribution of their products via an intermediary than is already possible with their own website. By simplifying the distribution of increasingly rich content, the NDC standard is also, and above all, preparing to advance the customisation logic in the world of travel. So much so that we are still wondering whether technology suppliers are capable of adapting their tools to such rich content. "It's going to be a real challenge for expense management tools "As Alexandre Jorre, Marketing Director at Amadeus, points out. And he warns: "Some companies will be able to invest effectively in offering the right expense reconciliation solutions, while others will not". Another area of uncertainty, and not the least, is how far this personalisation of the offer can go, and to what extent will the company retain control? The advocates of the NDC standard assure us that the issue of ancillary costs should become more transparent for the company, enabling it to negotiate more effectively with its airline on the basis of more detailed information.
The history of the NDC has yet to be written, including by "new entrants" to the market, who will in turn be able to offer uses more or less adapted to the business travel market. However, given that only a dozen or so of the professionals brought together on Tuesday by GBTA France claimed to be familiar with the new standard, the efforts being made by the various players to educate the public appear to be essential.
