Slated for release in the next few weeks, details are starting to emerge about the long-awaited official launch of the Universal API project by Travelport.
Officials are already claiming “game-changing” status for the Universal API system, a multi-million pound project to create a single hosepipe of content from across the Travelport network of travel suppliers.
The API will be made available to existing customers, such as online and business travel agencies, as well as clearly being aimed at other types of businesses including metasearch engines.
Content included “down the pipe” will include air fares, hotel availability, car hire and European high-speed rail tickets.
Travelport is also talking up the addition (although it has content agreements anyway) of a string of low cost carriers, such as EasyJet -Â the anti-GDS airline Ryanair remains absent, inevitably, for the time being.
Ancillary products from airlines are also included, when existing agreements include such items.
The Universal API is also playing a major part in the new Universal Desktop system for offline travel agencies, another project scheduled for imminent release by Travelport.
The system effectively powers the entire content stream going into Universal Desktop, thus why both products are going live at around the same time.
Phil Donathy, global product manager on the developer solutions team at Travelport, says the project has taken the best part of three years to complete and uses much of the technology and skills obtained via its acquisition of part of G2Switchworks in April 2008.
“We created this [Universal API] to solve the problem that many have when having to connect to multiple APIs from suppliers. Rather than coding for multiple connections, we are supplying it all in one place.”
Travelport is preparing to ramp up its marketing efforts to the wider industry over the course of the next month, quietly adding a number of introduction and developer tutorial video clips on YouTube yesterday and launching a dedicated website for the system a few weeks ago.
Indeed, such is Travelport’s obvious excitement, a game known as API Eliminator is included on the API website.
Nevertheless, the timing couldn’t be better for Travelport, in some respects.
Certainly in the US it is expected that the marketplace will change over the coming months as intermediaries (meta and OTA) evaluate which content pipe they wish to use, if and when Google’s acquisition of ITA Software is approved after antitrust hearings.
Three things stand out to me about this
a) It is a great initiative. I like the idea of a central data pipe and central documentation etc etc. All good
b) Before I start playing with some code I want to know what shape the final commercials might be. I can’t find that information on the site so why would I invest 4 hours playing time if it turns out the commercials are wrong anyway. I want to either see a clear commercial proposition (costs for API usage / transactions etc) on the site – or a contact person (named) who I can contact to discuss this. I do not want to contact via a bland “contact us” form that might disappear into the ether.
c) “Commercial information” is defined including “sample software code, System functionality, technology”. That immediately puts me off. For for this to be a new API approach I want to see this information have less restriction on it. For example on our own (TourCMS) API, we have everything documented in public. That enables people to read, share, forward etc without requiring complex provision for NDAs, excluding certain information etc. Because we published the schema in the public, any developers themselves know they can publish their own code based on it without fear of falling into a legal trap….
Without (b) and (c) being addressed this is just a dressing up of an existing API with some, albeit technically interesting, data centralisation.
What is so new about this? Several IT companies including Ypsilon.net have been offering common API merging content from different source and GDS since years?
@patrick…
Perhaps Tport is suggesting it’s “game-changing” simply because a company of its size (i.e. megaGDS) has done it?
I’ve invited them to respond… We’ll see if they do.
Hi Alex,
Firstly, I’ll give the usual disclaimer – the following comments are all mine, and not Travelport’s – although I’m a bit of a cheerleader, so…
a)Damn straight it’s great – c’mon a bit more excitement – amazing maybe?
b)We don’t have the commercials on there as it’s a global site, and as such there are a lot of variances. Also, you show a cost and you’ve not sold the product, just the price, I wouldn’t say we’re unusual in that – I can think of very few adverts that lead with the price. Also, the Contact Us form, you’re right, not the most engaging of starts, however, (again) global site, different contacts in each country. I can confirm though that there is no way that anything we get through there would be lost in the ether. As we’re both in the UK, more than happy to help you out and go through the commercials.
c)I think you mean “Confidential Information”, however I agree with you on this one. I’d love for all of this to be far more open, and hopefully that is what we can move towards, however my view is that this is something that legacy systems or older companies have issues with. They are used to maintaining control over everything, and really it is the far younger companies/organisations who are working in a more open way (Arduino vs IBM; Microsoft vs Linux)
I think your last comment is less than charitable – you’re making the assumption that b) means you won’t get any contact, and that c) is going to be totally restrictive, which yes you can’t post everything everywhere, but we’ve given you loads of stuff to play with (and it’s down to you to decide if it’s worth it), and the NDA is a simple matter of clicking on a button – not that complex. “An existing API”? Really? I’d say, we’ve created a new API that gives you simple access to a number of APIs currently, and a constantly developing roadmap of future content, backed by the fact that Travelport’s future platforms are powered by this and so you’re tapping directly into what we’re doing. Develop once, and we do all of the maintenance work.
Sorry I did say I was a cheerleader, so Ra Ra Ra!
DB
Hi David
a) OK – its exciting! Although we are not Travelport users – so probably don’t appreciate how exciting this is
b) Commercials – ok – look I know sharing commercials is tricky. But say someone asks us to add flights to their tour operator reservation system. I want a page I can send to them and say – look – here are the approximate costs. This is how a deal is structured. Without that being public we end up having to email details (hypothetically) to the tour operator – and therefore the information dissemination is done outside of your control – at least if you had it on your page – you would control the information flow process. As it is, you have just put the travel tech company (us) back in control of distribution of the top level commercial info based on what we think it might be. I am sure you don’t want that as we could be wrong, out of date, unaware of special commercial conditions etc.
c) Yes confidential info
As for being less than charitable, well I have no idea what you have done (apart from this Tnooz post). I visited your site, shot a few APIs in the game, read the PDF, watched a webinar (liked that!), read the T&Cs for the SDK hence never got as far as looking at actual code or data.
Again, just me talking, not Travelport.
@Alex, hopefully you’ll have time to play with it and see whether it’s great or not – commercials aside, it’s got to work for you
@Patrick, these things are always arguable, and I’m certainly not the expert on every offering out there. However this IS the first time a GDS has given access to more than just their own content (in fact the first time we’ve brought all our own content together – you want to work with Worldspan, Galileo and Apollo, then do the development once and you’re there), we’re opening it all up and then some – we’re making it one simple API to work with.
With all of the content Ypsilon have got just now you’d obviously see the benefit of someone else taking the responsibility for maintenance of each of those APIs (plus the cost of additional content in the future), increasing your efficiency and reducing cost. With regards to that content, we’re a global company and this feed is the basis of our own platforms – globally – so from a business point of view we’ve already got the market to deliver to, so we’re going to be doing this work anyway.
It’s a simple case of buying power, we’re letting everyone benefit.
This is just my view, and as I say I’m no expert,
DB
how to integrate this gds api in my site and from where can i get that api.Please reply
Hi Suma,
Please visit http://www.travelportuniversalapi.com which will allow you to get access to the Software Development Kit (to build what you want), and then get a test access (to test what you’ve built), then if it’s for you click on Contact Us to get your own licence and get going.
I hope that helps,
DB