A GLOBAL AND LEGAL OVERVIEW OF TRAVEL AGENT REPRESENTATIVES 575 In this line of activities and objectives, IATA developed the New Distribution Capability (NDC) with a data transmission standard, based on XML, still with the reasoning that such ‘tool’ or ‘concept’ aims to increase the communication capacity between airlines and travel agencies. IATA also claimed that the NDC is not a system or even a solution, sometimes referring to it as a ‘protocol’ that intends to increase air offer to customers by air ticket distributors, in specific travel agents. The travel distribution market, through travel agencies in their various modalities – physical travel agencies, online travel agencies (OTAs), tour operators, corporate travel agencies, consolidators, among others –, experienced some difficulties in finding a market to their content and services to be purchased from airlines. In fact, a market such as the Global Distribution System (GDS) is a large electronic system which acts as an information database and so, through automated processes, aims to intermediate – with advanced technology – demand and services of travel agencies, for instance, reservations and Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) issues, changes and cancellations, with airlines, hotels, tour operators, tourism rental companies and others. Fig.1. Source: Portal news: Hosteltur.com2 The major GDS companies in the world are Saber, Amadeus and Travelport, which can operate all over the world. As a result, some products and services are not available for distribution channels, through the GDSs, such as several so-called ancillaries, which are only offered and purchased either directly from an airline or, when available, on its portal or specific channels. With this, IATA’s idea, through the NDC, was to make it possible to standardise the air waybill, 2 Source: https://www.hosteltur.com/113904_sistema-distribucion-iata-podria-aumentar-competitividad- -agentes.html.
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