Your hotel room in your palm

In the first six months of 2017, FlightStats shows that over one in four major airline flights within the Middle East and Africa (130,140 out of 599,150) suffered from some form of disruption. New Travelport technology lets passengers use their mobile to instantly book hotel rooms when flights are cancelled or delayed.

Travelport has launched Travelport Resolve – a new product for airlines that put travellers first, automating the sourcing and distribution of hotel rooms, air rebooking and integrating meal and transport needs into a single, seamless and paperless experience when flights are cancelled or delayed. Travelport Resolve enables airlines to react to disruptions with speed and accuracy, immediately communicating with passengers after an itinerary change so passengers can use their mobile device to quickly select and book their preferred hotel from the available local accommodation options.

Travelport Resolve, developed from an idea generated in the Travelport Labs Accelerator programme, transforms the current labour-intensive, manual hotel sourcing, booking and payment process that typically plagues airlines during disruptive irregular operations (IROPS) situations. By combining Travelport’s mobile expertise and its ability to source and book hotel rooms across the globe, allowing airlines to automate and monitor the entire hotel distribution process, Travelport Resolve demonstrates the unique power of Travelport’s platform to improve the travel experience for airlines and their customers. “With a few simple touches on their mobile device, Travelport helps disrupted passengers to bypass the frustration of hotel and meal voucher lines and quickly be on their way to a comfortable hotel room,” says Derek Sharp, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Air Commerce, Travelport. “For airlines, Travelport Resolve helps carriers improve customer service performance during disruptions, avoiding serious damage to their brand and opportunities to build their relationships with the affected customers.” Travelport Resolve also provides airlines with actionable insights into IROPS, including hotel-related costs, room usage, passengers’ status and activity patterns, with up-to-the-minute reporting tools that analyse the true cost of disruptions to an airline’s business and identify improvements an airline can make to its service.

The product will soon include predictive features, enabling airlines to recognise potential irregular operations/IROPS situations and local conditions or events that may create limited hotel availability. Travelport Resolve will then automatically procure room inventory needed to meet passenger demand.