World First - Airline Rich Content Branding Data Delivered by OTA – Future.Travel

April 23, 2015 - PRLog -- In an industry first, www.Future.Travel (https://www.future.travel) is delivering airline branded fares and ancillary products via its’ public OTA portal, after 8 months of testing with its GDS partner TravelPort (TVPT:New York).

“Currently we are servicing about 35 of the 90+ airlines who have enrolled branding data, pricing, and images into the TravelPort rich content branding system.” said David Watson the General Director for Future.Travel. “We can see the benefits already as customers are able to select branded fares and services, including upgrades, to meet their travel needs. It is saving us lost shopping requests to the airline sites as we are delivering the content customers are looking for on the Future.Travel website. For the airlines their tailor made branding is now deep into the OTA market, so we are both winning. With the ability to see and choose ancillary products and alternative fare options on the page, the Future.Travel shopping experience has more of an airline site feel, except we have 90 airlines on the same site.”

Based on transparency in ticketing and pricing, Future.Travel is limiting branding information to be displayed only by full service airlines, as low-cost carriers basic pricing information does not currently meet their own brand model. “We receive some excellent branding feeds from LCC’s, but have eliminated them (LCC’s) from the online product offering as they are more closely aligned to a drip pricing model of shopping. We have a separate disclaimer version, of the Future.Travel site, that will allow us to support these discount airlines via a managed and publically disclosed ‘drip’ pricing system. We expect it to go online this quarter. Some of the LCC’s have brilliant branding, and we want to support them, but on our brand terms.” said Watson.