As airlines like Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways increasingly compete to effectively drive revenue through differentiation and initiatives such as Fare Choices, they face the challenge when selling their products indirectly of ensuring the travel agent and traveller community have clarity and transparency on their increasingly differentiated offering.
ABU DHABI – Travelport, a leading Travel Commerce Platform providing distribution, technology, payment and other solutions for the US$8 trillion global travel and tourism industry, announced that Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has gone live on its Rich Content and Branding product, with Etihad Airways’ Fare Choices structure fully enabled to search, sell and book through Travelport’s Smartpoint platform.
Product innovation is at the foundation of Etihad Airways’ recent move to allow customers to further tailor and customise their travel experience through their Fare Choices offering. This is where Travelport’s Rich Content & Branding initiative is leading the industry by allowing airlines to effectively display their full range of services and provide accurate comparisons to travel agents and their customers, whether for airport or on-board services through the use of clear imagery and descriptions.
As airlines like Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways increasingly compete to effectively drive revenue through differentiation and initiatives such as Fare Choices, they face the challenge when selling their products indirectly of ensuring the travel agent and traveller community have clarity and transparency on their increasingly differentiated offering.
Travelport’s revolutionary Rich Content & Branding product now enables Etihad Airways to seamlessly integrate Fare Choices into travel agency screens with the ability for Etihad Airways to vary descriptions and imagery. This is done, for example, by aircraft type, and controls how each individual fare is described and presented with clear information on the services included, versus those that are excluded or chargeable along with a simple to read matrix display to summarise that information across all fare brands.
Peter Baumgartner, Etihad Airways’ Chief Commercial Officer, said: “We are fully committed to supporting travel agents in promoting and tailoring our products to meet the needs of our guests. In collaboration with our partner Travelport, we are delighted to provide travel agents and our guests with a greater understanding and transparency of our products in line with the values we stand for. At Etihad Airways, it’s all about providing guests and trade partners with the greatest levels of choice and innovative products that differentiate ourselves from our competitors.”
Will Owen Hughes, Senior Director Air Commerce, Middle East & North Africa, Travelport commented: “We are thrilled about the role of our technology in supporting Etihad’s business objectives to the travel agent and traveller community. Rich Content and Branding is meeting the needs of stakeholders across the travel industry; the airlines’ need for differentiation and agents’ and consumers’ need for comparison and transparency.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
