Stand out with Product Differentiation
by Manish Shrivastava

There are probably few industries that have to cope with a wider range of customers than the travel industries.

Many travel companies are a luxury, mid-range and budget provider all at the same time (often on the same plane, boat or train!).

In the past, travel companies have been able to make the most of this in broad strokes, using classes, fare families and loyalty schemes to segment their customer base in order to try to target products and offers.

However this didn't offer the granularity needed to make the most of opportunities. Just because a customer was a budget traveller in their leisure time, this didn't mean they were when travelling for business.

And some elements of a product offered only as part of a luxury fare would be of interest to a leisure traveller, for example, a customer might be willing to pay extra for lounge access, but not be able to afford a business ticket.

Even when airlines created innovative products, it was often difficult to share them through indirect channels.

NDC gives the opportunity for airlines to make it easier for end customers to differentiate between their different products and choose what's right for them, using rich content and images. This allows airlines to build more complex products, confident that they will not just confuse their customers.