Routehappy is working toward becoming an enterprise software
company, according to CEO Robert Albert.
Routehappy by ATPCO has built three rich content hubs for
airlines, demonstrating that it has shifted focus from putting together airline
content itself to enabling airlines to supply their own, CEO Robert Albert
said.
One new hub is for amenities, one for "universal ticket
attributes" for fare restrictions and benefits like priority boarding, and
one for "universal product attributes," which include videos, photos
and other marketing content for airlines' products.
While Routehappy already had built hubs for both the UTAs
and UPAs, it had gathered that data itself. That data still will be available
to distributors and sales channels via Routehappy's application programming
interfaces. The new hubs will give airlines more control and the ability to
provide even richer content.
For example, an airline could specify not just
"snacks" but that Starbucks coffee and biscotti are available on a
flight, or United could specify its Polaris class rather than a generic first
or business class description, he said. With UTAs, Delta could specify
SkyPriority status rather than the more generic "priority"
descriptor.
All three hubs are connected in a common cloud environment,
so airlines can see all their content in a single interface. The new hubs come
eight months after airfare publishing firm ATPCO acquired Routehappy.
"This has turned Routehappy from a company focused on
content to a company focused on solutions," Albert said. "It's a huge
sea change and shift from what we've been doing, and this is the beginning of
Routehappy as a serious enterprise software company."
Routehappy also has begun offering its own content
specialists to help airlines develop merchandising content. Its agents, for
instance, could help an airline set up a photo shoot for its product or do
consumer testing to see what content would produce the best results, Albert
said.
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Source: Business Travel News