Deconstructing The Digital Airline And What It Means For Airline Distribution

Transcript

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Good afternoon, everyone. What a gorgeous day it is to be indoors. I'm really enjoying Sydney right now. So, like Nicholas, I hope that you will understand my English because I come from Southeast Asia. Unlike Nicholas, though, I did not prepare. the beautiful slides that have inspired me now to visit South America. Otherwise, I would have prepared slides of food, right? Southeast Asian food and mountains, but all I have for you today, unfortunately, are some numbers because it's a CAPA event. So I'm gonna basically start off and put the online travel market in context, and then I'm gonna invite So the first one is really talking about how the online market is really outpacing traditional growth. And by 2021, it will form 48% of the total market. Total market meaning leisure and unmanaged business travel market. The second one, clearly everybody knows that, is China leading the pack. So China's online penetration is really high. Markets like India and Indonesia showing the fastest growth. Given that it's Asian markets that are leading the growth into Australia, I suppose this trend will be really relevant to the audience here. The third one is clearly mobile. In Asia, we are really mobile crazy. Nobody looks at anybody anymore. Everybody just looks at their phones and fall into the potholes. China clearly accounting for the lion's share of the mobile market. 4 is really airline. Air dominates. It's about 40%, 44% online air penetration last year in the APAC market. The 5th trend is really everybody knows OTAs. They're becoming bigger, monopolistic almost. It's not only intensifying, it represents about 46% of the market right now, but it's outpacing traditional markets. So how are airlines navigating this market? How are all of you navigating this changing travel market? Please welcome my panelists, Sunil Joseph, Regional Director Airlines South Pacific from Amadeus. We have David Lorimer, Managing Director for HRG Worldwide. And we have Chris Ramm, VP APAC Air Commerce, Travelport. Please welcome my panelists. So I'm now going to join the blokes on the panel.

David Lorimer:Here we go.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Good afternoon. How are you?

Chris Ramm:Very good.

David Lorimer:Very well, thank you. Good.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Excellent. So again, let's stick to numbers because we seem to love numbers. I asked you both— I asked all of you to kind of pick 2 numbers that you want to talk about. So take 2 numbers from the air and talk about the 2 numbers you want to share. Why don't we start with you, Chris, the man in the middle?

Chris Ramm:Man in the middle. So 2 numbers from me. First number, 47%. So I'll give a bit of context to that. Otherwise, I'm just leaving you with a strange number. So we did a global digital travel research very recently. And 47% was the— the number of travel-related searches that were originating from a voice device, or had some form of— sorry, some form of voice device involved in it.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:And that's a global number.

Chris Ramm:Global number. I have to say that knocked me for 6 a little bit. I was surprised by that, but not surprised by just where that's going. It's certainly going to grow even further. Second number? 260. So Travelport, we're very pleased to have 260— actually, it's 260+ now. I think it's up to 263. But 260 airlines that participate in our rich content and branding proposition, which provides all the rich imagery and the upsell capabilities and cross-sell capabilities.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:What percentage of the market is that? How many airlines are there in the world? You've got 260?

Chris Ramm:So 260 airlines. We have just over 400 airlines that participate with us. We have roughly 80% of our top 100 carriers, so it's by far the lion's share of our volume. So it's far greater than the 268 to 400.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:All right, so let's go to Sunil.

Sunil Joseph:So the numbers I had in mind was 50 to 70%. 50 to 70% are actually infrequent flyers, if you like.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Infrequent flyers.

Sunil Joseph:Yep, and the question really for the airlines is, you know, how do you kind of capitalize on that and how do you kind of continue to to sell your value proposition to those infrequent flyers. That way you kind of retain the business. In the competitive landscape, of course, loyalty is extremely elusive, if you like. So the challenge for the airlines is actually to try and get those customers back on their planes. And I think one of the ways they could be doing it, through better technology, through personalization, through data, etc. So it's really important for the airlines to focus on the infrequent traveler as well, to continue to— Okay.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:What's the second number?

Sunil Joseph:The second number was 2020, and that's really the number from IATA, which is around NDC. IATA would like 20% of content coming through 20% of the airlines by 2020.

Chris Ramm:Okay.

Sunil Joseph:So in this area—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So 20% of air content through NDC from 20 carriers by 2020?

Chris Ramm:Correct.

Sunil Joseph:That's right.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay.

Sunil Joseph:As we all know, NDC has kind of been there for a while, but it's kind of now reaching a critical mass. tipping point, if you like, whereby airlines are taking note, the technology is getting ready. Us at Amadeus, we're also certified with our NDC certifications, if you like. And really, it is, it is going to, it is going to be a game changer, at least for the indirect channel.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So let's see how realistic that goal is. I mean, David, I'm gonna go to you.

David Lorimer:How realistic is it? So, Hoon, my, my first number is, is €20, which equates to $31.50 Australian. And that's the, that's the, the price differential that the, the Lufthansa Group in Europe are applying to fares being sold through the, the non-traditional distribution channel. So it works out to be €20, about $31. So if you want to buy something from Austrian or Swissair or Lufthansa, and it's, it's a, it's a, it's a cheap and cheerful fare, it's available through a particular channel, Which bypasses the traditional distribution channel, and it's €20 cheaper. So my second number— Sunil kind of stole my thunder, but I can extrapolate it out a little bit, Sunil. So 20, 20, 20 is the number that is being openly spoken about. But the number that it is today of carriers who are distributing through NDC— a lot of people are talking about it all the time— is less than 5%. So less than 5% of content today is being distributed via what we are now calling NDC. OK.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So do you think it's realistic that we're going to hit that 20%?

David Lorimer:Well, it's 2020, I heard.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Just say yes or no.

David Lorimer:It's 31 December 2020, 2 and a half years. I think no.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:No?

Sunil Joseph:I think we'll get closer.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Close?

Chris Ramm:I'm more confident. I think yes. So I think certainly there's some airlines that will exceed it, some might fall short, but overall I think 20%.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay. All right. Divided opinions. All right. So now we're going to really kind of zip through the headlines. I just gathered a few headlines and we're just going to discuss the headlines that I've gathered. So this is around trends that you've also contributed to, you know, to the panel. So Oh yeah, it's happiness is personal. I think, Chris, you picked that, you know. So, so let's start this on a happy note. Happiness is personal. Yes. You know, who's doing it well? Who's making passengers happiest?

Chris Ramm:Who's doing it really well today? I don't think there's— I don't think there's anyone that is excelling necessarily. I think there's moves in the right direction. I've seen good examples. I think EasyJet, as part of their 20th anniversary, had an email campaign where they produced— I think it was over 12.5 million, 12 million-ish unique emails that spoke to each individual that had details of all of the trips that they'd taken with EasyJet in that 20-year period. And as part of that campaign, there was obviously links to to search for new flights and to make more bookings. They had double the click-through associated to that campaign than any other campaign that they've done. And the interaction was so much higher as a result of that. So when you get personalization right, it works. We're not there yet.

David Lorimer:All right.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So let's go to David and talk about how is HRG addressing personalization.

David Lorimer:So I'll speak on behalf of the TMC community, not just my organization. I think, I think we need to do better in terms of personalization. So today, the TMCs in the room, I'm sure you'll all be across this, we store a profile— excuse me— of our travelers' information. And that traditionally is, of course, name, next of kin, telephone number, etc. But it also stores the all-important frequent flyer number or hotel loyalty number or car loyalty number and The issue is every time we make a booking, we transmit that number across to the airline so the airline can then drill down into that number and see the whole scroll of information. We can't see that scroll of information. So now there's a bit of privacy law involved here too, but we would have a far deeper relationship with our customer if we could see more information and if we could see that frequent flyer profile, if that makes sense.

Chris Ramm:OK.

David Lorimer:Yep.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:You also flagged personalization as a key trend, so do you want to add to it?

Sunil Joseph:Yeah, look, I think Chris is right to a large degree. In fact, personalization is an important piece of any airline's vision now, customer experience if you like. That's part of their strategy. I think there's not— they've not matured yet there. I think it's quite clear that airlines need to get there yet. The technology is also evolving, if you like, along with the strategy.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:I guess because customers, you know, like we are also used to personalization now. You know, when we open our Netflix, we see a different screen from what I see versus your screen or Spotify, my screen. So when do you think our industry, our, you know, an airline can get there? Give me a timeframe.

Sunil Joseph:I think before 2020.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Before 2020.

Sunil Joseph:Okay, that's it. All right, now, I mean, the technology is available, although it needs to evolve a little bit more. Airlines are already talking to Amadeus and some have already deployed that to start seeing the results is where we are actually at, to start seeing the KPIs, if you like. The KPIs have been set by the airlines. So it's there. As you mentioned, through Netflix and Amazon, people are experiencing personalization. Research tells us that through personalization, yield can actually go up by 10%. So it's really important for the airlines to actually look at that aspect and actually align themselves with how customers are buying today. So they are used to personalization, so the airlines need to do the same.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, so now let's go through the headlines and we go NDC. I mean, clearly the most spoken 3-letter word right now at an airline conference. And this headline is basically Avianca becoming the first airline in the Americas to integrate with Skyscanner through NDC. So basically you're seeing a meta, you know, a first travel marketplace basically selling through their direct booking platform already. So David, I mean, what are the implications of this development on your business?

David Lorimer:So we quite simply, we want to offer the most, the best, most attractive fares to our customers. It's as simple as that, regardless of where they come through, come from. So if, if we have the ability to, to be able to offer a whole host of faring that we can't do today from, from a different channel, that's a good thing. We will do that because our customers demand that. But I will say that we, you know, does this worry you at all? It does in a way, because it could wait— it could make my world inefficient. It could make my world inefficient, and efficiency is core to me as a TMC. And again, speaking on behalf of the entire TMC community, everything we do has to be efficient. And if it's not efficient, if we have to reach out on multiple APIs and manage the varying feeds that come into my business, Then that's a cost, and that, that obviously puts pressure on price points. I want to be able to— my ideal world is to have a one-stop shop. Yeah, to have a one-stop shop for all the faring possible. And HRG has taken a bit of an each-way bet on this. We created this thing called HRG OneView, which is essentially a warehouse of inventory, some from the GDS, some from carriers such as BA and Lufthansa Group, who—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:But that's what Sorry, I mean, so please feel free to jump in, but that's what models like Skyscanner, they're doing. I mean, for them, they are creating the one-stop shop, right?

David Lorimer:Yeah.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:They are going to be the Taobao of travel airfares. So you are basically facilitating this, right?

Sunil Joseph:Yeah, that's right. And I think it's an important question for Amadeus, at least as a technology provider. Our responsibility is to facilitate the right balance for our customers, whether it's meta or for the airlines. I think what is really interesting here is airlines for a long time have been trying to obviously focus on trying to improve their direct booking percentage. But the reality is that even in their direct booking, roughly about 60 to 70% of their bookings are intermediated through paid search and meta search engines, etc. What is really important from a technology standpoint is in the past meta search companies were screen scraping the airline websites, and this was not efficient because Consumers were getting dropouts, there was inconsistency in booking, etc. But with this technology, what is happening is the airlines or the customer is getting real-time data. It's consistent. They're— they're— they're— they're— the book-to— the look-to-book ratio is— the conversion is greater. So it's a win for the airline that actually Skyscanner is an important channel for, and it's of course good for the consumer.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay.

Chris Ramm:Yeah, just to add, I agree completely. It's a win for the consumer. There's been for many years a barrier to entry into this world, and that's been the complexity of the technology and everything surrounding that. That's going away with NDC, and that can only be good for the consumer. It's our job to make sure that we're, whether it's Travelport, travel agents, or airlines—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:And meeting the customer demands, right?

Chris Ramm:Absolutely.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, so the third trend is basically an interesting trend that we're seeing clearly in Asia is messaging, right? So we had LINE in Japan investing basically 38% into a Japanese travel search website. So in Asia, I think between LINE, WeChat, and Kakao, there are 1.3 billion monthly active users. So messaging.

Sunil Joseph:Yeah.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So what do you think of this move towards messaging as the new distribution platform?

Sunil Joseph:Look, I think it's a new channel really. I think airlines need to pay attention to this platform. Messaging is big. So it's a challenge. It's, it's, it's an opportunity for the airline because it is a new channel. In Asia, as you said, it's massive. And if there's a channel, there's a market for sure. And there are other vendors also looking at messaging platforms. So I think it's no different for the airline and they need to pay attention.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So, so David, I mean, how are you using messaging? That I would say that that would be a fantastic tool for you.

David Lorimer:It's, it's a big part of our world. So, so it's, um, you know, we have something called EBM, event-based messaging. So I land at— let me give you an example. I land at Heathrow and the EBM will say it recognizes where I am in the world. Everybody has a telephone. It's intrinsic to them. We know where our customers are. We know where they're going and we know when they're landing. So when I land in Heathrow, It will say to me, don't get the transfer. Make sure you get the Heathrow Express, and then make sure you get the Circle Line to your office, which is 3 stops. That'll take you 35 minutes instead of 2 hours on a transfer. So EBM— whenever I go to Melbourne every week, and when I land in Melbourne, it tells me my office address, as if I don't know the office address. But it's certainly an example of EBM, and it will tell me the best way to get to where I'm going. But we also have— It's kind of an extension of event-based messaging. We're a big believer in live chat as opposed to robo-chat. So maybe we'll leave that one because that one is coming up, isn't it? Yeah, that one is. But in terms of social media, we're taking a kind of watch-and-see approach. I know social media now is integrated into the fabric of life. But in terms of messaging, we've done our own thing with HRG EBM.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Chris, do you want to add anything? I mean, in Asia, we're actually seeing people, basically small businesses, kind of migrate their business onto the messaging platform. You know, it becomes an entire loop for them now.

Chris Ramm:Absolutely. And was it 1.3 billion unique active users? When you're looking at that number, then when the audience is that large, you can't ignore it. You have to. In fact, I was on a panel with you, Siew Hoon, 6, 7 weeks ago, and we had agents on that panel, and they're talking about doing this as a priority. This is not their mobile first, but it's— yes, it's the messaging apps as well. We have to make sure that we're across those. It's top of the list of priorities in Asia, and I just see it growing.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, so the 4th trend is ancillaries. Everybody loves that topic. I think we heard Nicholas talk about it. It says This report shows that in 2017, the top 10 airline revenues ancillaries jumped to $29.7 billion. And so there were 2 APAC examples. One was Qantas loyalty, excess of $1.5 billion. And then top ancillary revenue per passenger by global was AirAsia X at $33.12. So that's quite a— So what are these 2 airlines doing right?

David Lorimer:It's quite simple. They're retailing. They're becoming retailers. So they're selling more. And it's fascinating because it's never happened before in the industry in which I've worked for 28 years. So we, you know, I might sell a premium cabin seat to a customer today. It might say just— it'll show just D, D class in the premium cabin or J class. And we click on that and we buy that seat. I think that's a great point.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:How do you take advantage of this move towards retailing? Because, you know, I flew with ScootBiz for the first time and there were so many things that I could— I could end up the whole flight just buying stuff.

David Lorimer:Sure. What's going to happen is that there's big implications here. So your question is, how do we take advantage? We want to retail that new stuff. We want to retail it because we potentially can be remunerated for retailing that that stuff. But there's a lot of implications here, and I'll skim across them really quickly. It has implications for the corporate travel policy. So the purchasing of— the procurement of airline deals in a year or so's time will not be, I'm spending $5 million a year. That's your airline spend, but then there's potentially a couple of hundred dollars on top of that. And I've got a couple of examples. Have we got time for these examples? Sure.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:I mean, we have 15 minutes.

David Lorimer:Sure. But if you can take 3 seconds, it's fine. So I'll be really, really quick. So I've written them down because there's quite a few. There was an IATA Travel Management Group advisory group which was facilitated by IATA and Festive Road. Mike Orchard is in the audience today. And this group came up with some, some options that they think will be able to be, to be retailed by the carriers. And I'll read them out to you really quickly. Corporate recognition leading to fast track at the airport. I'd pay $15 for that. Selling business class food to economy passengers.

Chris Ramm:Yeah.

David Lorimer:I'd pay $25 for that. Maximizing the downtime on long-haul pre-purchase— on long-haul by pre-purchasing gyms. Not really sure. If you had an 8-hour layover, perhaps. Lounge access. Priority deboarding. That's funky. So if you're in row 63, I'm not sure how that's going to work. But would you prepay for that? I'm not sure. And the last one is Bag management, you know, would you pay for your bags to be pre-picked up from your office before you depart Sydney and dropped off in Singapore? So there's potentially $60 worth of ancillary options that I could choose, that my customer could choose, and I could sell to my customer.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Right.

David Lorimer:And that's where your money's coming from, your $1.5 billion here.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Yeah. What would you pay for? I mean, as an air traveller, so take off your Amadeus hat, right? As a corporate traveler, what would you pay for?

Sunil Joseph:I'd definitely pay for the business class meal if I was traveling economy for a—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So business class upgrade?

Sunil Joseph:Oh yeah, for sure.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:What would you pay for, Chris?

Chris Ramm:I know what I wouldn't pay for, but I know there are examples of this. I know that Peach last year, I think they sold— they were selling cars.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Volkswagen cars. Yeah, they sold 3 Volkswagen cars and a condominium.

Chris Ramm:That's something I wouldn't be thinking of at the top of my list when I sit on that airline seat. So I'm impressed with that. The other thing that— and it's not answering your question directly, but on this topic, Qantas is one good example. I'm really excited to see where that number is going to increase to now that they've kind of— they've already announced the Qantas distribution platform.

Sunil Joseph:Yeah.

Chris Ramm:That's clearly going to have a huge impact. huge benefit for them with the sale of ancillaries. I see that number increasing even higher. So the one standout example in the region today is potentially only going to go in one direction.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:There's a startup in Singapore that is actually offering passengers the ability to buy duty-free before the flight. So that's another potential ancillary revenue.

David Lorimer:And I want them to buy that through me.

Sunil Joseph:In the case of AirAsia X, I mean, when you fly medium-haul, long-haul, being a low-cost carrier, almost forced to buy ancillary because it's a long flight. You have needs. But I think in the case of Qantas, as Keith mentioned, fantastic retailing. It's a great brand. 1 out of 2 Australians are part of the Qantas frequent flyer program. I mean, they're very aggressive in their marketing. They have amazing partners. So yeah, those are really the factors that contribute to the success.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Cool. So now let's go to the next trend, which is about chatbots. And Scoot has just launched MARVI, and I, you know, I mean, I'm not gonna run the quiz about what MARVI stands for, but it's got awesome in it. What role will chatbots have in the future, like in your business now? What role is chatbots having?

David Lorimer:So our customers, every TMC's customers, has unique needs which need to be effected really quickly at the airport. For example, you know, rerouting, new flights, Dealing with a private fare change, all those types of things. And chatbots, I think, have their place in the world. We've chosen to go with live chat. So you literally hit the button, and it goes straight through to a counselor. And our consultants, our counselors deal with those issues in a live environment. So not so much a robot chat. I think that has its place, but not with our world. I think our world is a little bit too complex. Right.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:I mean, Peter was saying this morning that tourism jobs are AI-resistant. You know, maybe, maybe not all. But according to Scoot, since Mavi was launched on July 2nd, it has serviced on average 50 unique users a day, and it has successfully resolved 37.5% of the queries that come through Facebook. And they are actually now moving it into transactions. So that's probably where I think a lot of the airlines want to move the chatbot into transactions versus customer service.

Chris Ramm:Yeah, if I can just add on that. So at Travelport, we did a survey to understand what the biggest pain points were for both corporate and leisure travelers. And the key pain points that they identified are really addressable by chatbots. The number one thing that came up was how difficult and complicated it is to understand fare rules, to understand when you can, when you can change and cancel a flight. And spending time on that is really, really frustrating. Chatbots are a great opportunity for that, and we're looking at exactly that. So we have proof of concepts that are starting to take flight, and I think there's more news coming in Q3 from Travelport on that. I think it's— We're going to see more of this.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So would Amadeus be using chatbots to deal with travel agents?

Sunil Joseph:We can provide the technology, and that's what our goal is. We're already partnering, for example, with Accenture to look at further innovation in the area of chatbots. We already have a list of airline customers that we're trialing things with. But to the point of the other panelists, it's effective in the easy transactions, if you like, but the industry is complex, so it's still got a way to go.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, so it's voice, you know, Chris, you mentioned that, and KLM has launched BB, which means Blue Bot, and it searches for flights in both English and Dutch. So how long do you think it will be before 10% of travel will be booked using voice? Can you make a guess how long? Before 2020 or after 2020?

Sunil Joseph:I think after 2020. The reason I say that is I think the industry is complex. I think for travel you need visual, you need a bit of touch and feel. With voice, the response by voice, probably experiencing travel would probably, in my opinion, kind of be a bit of a backward step. I think again with voice you'll be able to do a lot of the easy tasks, or at least the airlines will be able to But I think there's technology now. For example, if you look at Amazon and if you look at, I think it's called Echo, whereby you can speak to it and you can actually get a response with pictures. That's the kind of technology I think will be far more effective in the industry.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:A combination of voice and visual.

Sunil Joseph:And I think that'll be the first point. And then later on, as voice matures, it'll probably try to handle or get maybe a consumer experience.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:They do say it's more natural for us to talk than to type though, you know, and maybe a new generation of consumers will behave very differently from us in terms of how—

Sunil Joseph:It's absolutely possible, but it's got to—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:After 2020.

Sunil Joseph:Yeah.

David Lorimer:What about— It's absolutely on its way, and AI, artificial intelligence, is here already. I think it's yet to be proven in sophisticated travel bookings. I mean, I'd hate to speak to a computer today and do a multi-sector, multi-carrier, round-the-world itinerary in the premium cabin and the economy cabin and for them to get that right today. But it's absolutely coming and it's something that we have a very, very open mind to. We've got voice today. You speak to one of our qualified travel consultants.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:A human voice. All right. So now let's talk about the next-gen airline. I think that's really good news for, you know, all of us oldies, fogies in the room because they do say that the next wave of innovation is really about, you know, constructive disruption, optimization, and combining the best of legacy and best of disruption. So it's really going to be, you know, the traditional companies that are really transforming and innovating, and that's going to be the next wave. So, so if I were to ask both of you first, like, what does the next-gen airline look to you? Can you pick 3 words to describe the next-gen airline?

Sunil Joseph:I, I think personalization for sure. I think extremely store retailing and merchandising to bring about similar experience that they're used to now. And I think dynamic pricing as well, which is great for the consumer and great for the airline too.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, so personal, retail, and dynamic pricing.

Sunil Joseph:Correct.

Chris Ramm:I'd go mobile. Mobile. It's not one word, but I'd say keep it simple because the beauty is you can avoid the complexity that's associated to legacy. Distribution and connectivity.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Mobile, simplicity, and connectivity. You've got 3 words. I'll take those. All right then. For David, maybe I can change it to what does the next-gen TMC look like?

David Lorimer:Next-gen TMC is a TMC that can have— can retail, has the capability to retail through this new distribution channel, but really has the opportunity to to have dynamic faring, to be able to retail dynamic faring. I think Sunil mentioned this.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay.

David Lorimer:But not only to the mass market, I want to have dynamic faring which will appeal to, first of all, the corporate segment, and then potentially clients within the corporate segment. So if a carrier wants to— has a low spot in September and they're selling advance faring now, you know, they can say to me as a TMC, you have 4 days dynamic faring to fill that low spot for us. And all they could say, give it to this client, this client, this client, with whom they have contracts. So it would override their private fare. So that's, that's one thing. And I think a second thing is, is speed to market. We see when a customer negotiates directly with a carrier—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Dynamic faring, speed to market, and speed to market. What's the third word?

David Lorimer:Dynamic faring, speed to market, and Because the time is running out. Yeah, okay. Let's just stay with speed to market. All right.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, so I wanted to end this panel on a positive note too and talk about the opportunities going forward and what makes you excited about the industry that you're in. So each of you have picked 3 opportunities. So Chris, I think that's you. Do you want to try and add to that?

Chris Ramm:So the top of the list, inspiration through social media. I think there's no better example than Nicholas's presentation earlier. I know certainly I'll go— I'll return back to Singapore where I live after this trip. I'll go home, and by the time I go home, my wife would have said, have you seen somebody, you know, our friend's photos or your cousin's photos that they put on social media of this holiday they've taken? It looks amazing. We saw that with the images that Nicholas shared, and that inspiration I think is is just incredible. And we, again, the same study that I mentioned right at the beginning of the session, we determined that 72% of travel-related inspiration now, it all originates from social media. And it's not a surprise when you see the images that we're seeing.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Well, travel is made for inspiration through social media, isn't it? I mean, I was at a Facebook event, and basically it's videos that have really taken over. I mean, Instagram has launched Instagram Stories. They've got Instagram TV now. And I think by next year, our feed for Instagram is going to be really dominated by stories and videos. So that's moving, you know, videos are coming on really in a big way. So let's go to— I think that's David.

David Lorimer:Okay, so relevant content. I think we kind of just covered that topic. Relevant content for the customer type. You know, there's content for leisure consumers, there's content for corporate consumers, and then there's content within the segments of the corporate sphere.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So I want to focus on the third point, collaborative versus combative. So what's the one thing that should be removed to make it less combative?

David Lorimer:I think dialogue. Dialogue should be introduced. More dialogue, more one-to-one discussion. I think, and I'm speaking globally here as a global TMC, We've seen airlines in some markets across the world kind of jump in feet first, and that's business. And then we've seen partners who have taken a very measured and paced approach. And I would say Qantas is an example of that with QDP. They engaged with the industry. There was dialogue. It was very, very positive. So I think, you know, a very collaborative approach to the next 2.5 years to get to 2020. 2020 is the way forward and not combative.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay.

Chris Ramm:Can I just add, sorry, on that point? I think it's more than just airlines and agencies. I think it's the whole industry. So everybody that's involved in this industry has to work together. There's so much change, whether it's NDC, whether it's all the items we've just discussed, AI, chatbots, etc.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:And I think this morning we heard from Jeff Calvert talking about airports and how airports to have to work with the entire industry.

Chris Ramm:Couch to gate or wherever it was, yeah, and the customer journey. Absolutely, everybody has to work together.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So this is yours?

Sunil Joseph:Yeah, for me, the first one was digital transformation. I think it's quite holistic. From a vision standpoint, I think a lot of the airlines are already thinking about what they need to do to win the customer, and I think personalization is one aspect that stands out very strongly. I think it's the execution piece where airlines need to actually expedite. So there's clearly an opportunity.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So enough talking and let's execute on what's possible.

Sunil Joseph:That's right. I mean, there are some airlines who are ahead, some airlines who are trying to catch up, but in principle, I think digital transformation across, because we talk about voice, chatbots, whatever, that's all part of digital transformation. The second one was data and analytics, and the transformation piece has to be backed up by data analytics, and data is available. So how can airlines leverage that data to try and find the right customers, make the right offers? So all those aspects of data.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So do you think the scandal that's happening with data right now, and I think the latest case where I think Facebook identified a few pirate accounts and all that, is that going to sort of set us back, do you think, in terms of how we use data?

Sunil Joseph:No, I mean, I don't think so. I think airlines are obviously very protective about their data, and as long as we have the right security measures in place and we use it for the right reasons, or they use it for the right reasons, absolutely there's no problem there. And the final one for me was NDC, and I think this is a great win for the indirect channel because I think with NDC and especially with the 2020 vision, the indirect channel will be able to almost catch up with whatever an airline is able to offer in the direct channel. And obviously in this part of the world, the airlines really value the indirect channel or the travel agencies or the TMCs. So actually having much enriched content in that indirect space for travel agency or TMC community is a fantastic thing. So airlines—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So I'm gonna ask you then to end up, you know, because we only 6 seconds left, right? You know, so what's your favorite travel app when you travel? What's the most indispensable travel app?

David Lorimer:The HRG travel app.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:It can't.

David Lorimer:And secondly, TripAdvisor.

Chris Ramm:Mine was Uber, but it's less valuable now based in Singapore. But—

Siew Hoon Yeoh:So Uber, okay.

Sunil Joseph:I'm a Qantas frequent flyer, so I have a Qantas app.

Siew Hoon Yeoh:Okay, all right, great. Please join me in thanking my panelists, David, Chris, and Sunil. Thank you.

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