“I plan to win. Period,” declared Greg Webb, the 71-day old CEO of Travelport but a long-time veteran in the industry, having spent more than 20 years at competitor Sabre. “I do not plan to be the third player for long.” And the gauntlet is thus thrown.
Travelport currently sits behind Sabre and Amadeus in the GDS market share race but Webb has bigger plans. “I really believe that Travelport has the ability to be more agile than our competitors. I think we have the ability to ultimately drive change.”
Webb joined the Travelport team soon after the company was taken private on a US$4.4 billion sale to Siris Capital Group and Evergreen Coast Capital in late May.
Six different office visits and 80 customer meetings later, Webb said he is confident that Travelport has the ability to show a speed-to-market that its competitors will find hard to keep pace with. Travelport, he said, will be disruptive not by creating a new business model per se, but by creating a speed-to-market that will be differentiated.
Webb is clear about Travelport’s raison d’être: it is an electronic exchange between buyers and sellers of travel. “Whether that is a multi-source content play or an efficiency play doesn’t matter. The industry is so complex that it requires us to provide a capability that is absolutely necessary, which is an aggregated source of content that makes it efficient for both buyers and suppliers,” he said in his first conversation with Asia’s press corps since he took office at Travelport.
“While the dialogue has changed [since I left the industry three years ago], some of the capabilities have moved dramatically. I think Travelport has done a very good job of adapting to that change in environment,” he added.
“I really feel energised by the fact that we are putting ourselves in what I think is a leadership position associated with how we operate in Asia Pacific.
“The direction that we’ve set for the company is one that is really providing a capability in the marketplace that really hasn’t existed before, and so structurally we look forward to adapting over time, to changes in the industry. I feel like we are well-positioned.”
Beyond air lies opportunities
An area we can definitely expect Travelport to hone in on is non-air even as it tries to catch its competitors in the air distribution space. The one-year-plus stint running Oracle’s hospitality business, Webb said, has given him “a lot of insight into the opportunities that exist in the hospitality space, some of which are untapped”.
“I’ve gained knowledge during that time period, around how the hospitality industry is fluctuating right now and what seems to be important to those players,” he added.
NDC rhetoric is a-plenty, but what is key?
No surprise when the discussion around NDC floated back into the meeting, and Webb was quick to say there is “a lot of rhetoric around NDC” and he maintains “whether it is API-based or XML/NDC-based, doesn’t really matter that much”. The bottom line is consumers need to be able to consume content regardless of source – whether it’s via a legacy standard or a new standard, and companies like Travelport must deliver that to the buyer side in the most efficient way possible, Web stressed.
“I think airlines will need to continue to adjust how they think about the offers that they put together, how they create new demand, getting people to buy things they don’t buy today. In many real ways, the unbundling of the offers that has happened over the last decade has confused consumers. It has changed consumer confidence associated with buying travel. I think if the airlines can recapture consumer confidence via the new standards around distribution, it will be fantastic for the industry. If we can drive to a consumer-based model where people understand how to buy, that will be fantastic.”
