ITQ bets big on Travelport’s TripServices as AI reshapes travel distribution; eyes visa space next

Anoop Tewari, Chief Commercial Officer, ITQ, shares more details with T3

The travel distribution landscape is undergoing one of its most significant transformations in decades, as artificial intelligence, New Distribution Capability (NDC), cloud computing and evolving airline distribution models reshape how travel is searched, booked and serviced. For ITQ, a leading travel technology company and Travelport’s official partner in India, the response is no longer limited to distributing air and hotel content through a GDS platform; it is about building a smarter, more efficient and better-optimised technology and content ecosystem.

As part of this strategy, Travelport has recently introduced TripServices, its next-generation intelligent technology platform on which the company plans to base its future offerings. Designed to deliver faster search responses, richer travel content and seamless integration across multiple travel services, from both Edifact and NDC content in one response to Stays offering 3M+ Hotel Properties with both Pre-Pay and Post-Pay models, the platform normalises and curates content from multiple sources through a single connection. It intelligently surfaces the most relevant options and orchestrates complex booking workflows that have historically consumed significant engineering time, making travel experiences simpler to build and easier to consume. It also automates post-booking workflows with voluntary and Involuntary changes and cancellations, along with penalty disclosure time windows.

Speaking to T3, Anoop Tewari, Chief Commercial Officer, ITQ Technologies, said the company is undergoing its biggest transition since inception as it prepares customers for a rapidly changing distribution landscape.

“Our focus today is no longer only on GDS distribution. It is about helping customers grow through technology, content and automation while preparing them for the next five to ten years,” Tewari said.

TripServices to become the tech backbone

Unlike legacy API architecture, powered by JSON, TripServices delivers lightweight, high-speed integrations.

“The result is much faster responses and much richer content,” Tewari explained. “Whether it is hotel images, room descriptions or displays, everything becomes much more immersive because of this next-generation API.”

The platform will serve as the delivery layer for virtually every new technology initiative ITQ is introducing. Future NDC integrations, Booking.com hotel inventory, richer merchandising content and AI-powered capabilities will flow through TripServices, positioning it as the company’s central technology platform rather than simply another booking interface, Tewari said.

The platform is already live with Travelport’s growing partner base. Air, hotel and ancillary content now flow through Travelport TripServices, while its intelligent content curation technology continues to improve results across search, ranking, pricing and fulfilment.

The newly announced partnership between Travelport, Cognizant and Anthropic will reshape Travel Technology and lead the entire industry into the AI era. Moving from search engines and keywords to social media & conversational, outcome-based discovery. The next phase of Travel innovation is connecting inspiration to execution, with trust. TripServices' built-in intelligence and orchestration will handle the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

AI moves from search to prediction

Explaining the partnership, Tewari said the next phase of travel technology will be defined not by displaying more options, but by displaying the right ones.

He explained that a simple Delhi-New York search can produce nearly 2,500 itinerary combinations through different airlines, transit points and fare structures. The real challenge is filtering those thousands of possibilities into the handful of options most relevant to a traveller.

Beyond improving customer experience, the partnership also focuses on making travel distribution more efficient. “Our job is to make distribution more efficient and optimise the look-to-book ratio for airlines while delivering the best possible results to travellers,” Tewari explained.

ITQ analyses vast amounts of travel behaviour, routing preferences, transit choices and booking patterns to determine which itineraries should appear first.

The company is now deploying AI to make this optimisation even more intelligent. Rather than merely reacting to a search request, future systems will proactively anticipate traveller requirements based on behaviour, travel history and preference patterns.

Tewari said travel companies are increasingly building customer “personas” by analysing preferred airlines, travel timings, cabin choices, shopping behaviour and other digital signals.

“In the near future, two people searching for the same destination on the same day may receive different results because the system understands their individual preferences,” he noted.

If search optimisation defined the pre-pandemic technology race, post-booking automation is defining the current one.

According to Tewari, the biggest demand from online travel agencies today is reducing operational costs by lowering dependence on large customer support teams. Seat changes, ticket refunds, itinerary modifications and passenger amendments that once required manual intervention are increasingly becoming self-service functions.

“Large customers wanted to reduce operational costs. What came after the pandemic was a huge appetite for post-booking automation,” he said.

ITQ has developed its own LLM-based AI platform that automates these processes, allowing travel agencies and customers to complete most servicing functions independently.

The company is also improving booking interfaces by displaying critical fare conditions—refundability, restrictions, penalties and change rules—during the search process itself. This enables travellers to make informed decisions without opening multiple fare rule windows, reducing booking time and improving conversion rates.

Making travel content richer

Another major pillar of ITQ's strategy is significantly expanding travel content beyond traditional airline distribution.

Travelport recently announced a partnership with Booking.com, enabling access to nearly three million hotel properties through the Travelport ecosystem.

For ITQ customers, this represents a dramatic increase from the roughly 150,000 hotel properties traditionally available through GDS to 3M+ properties. “The idea is not to miss any hotel,” Tewari said. “Every air traveller also books a hotel or uses a cab. That non-air component was missing. Hotel and non-air content will become a major focus.”

The company is also expanding ancillary content by adding insurance products, visa services and other travel offerings that complement airline bookings.

Tewari confirmed that ITQ is preparing a significant technology-led announcement in the visa services space later this year, although more details remain under wraps.

Solving the NDC challenge

While the industry continues to embrace NDC, Tewari believes the technology still has significant gaps to close before it can fully replace traditional GDS distribution. He estimates that overall NDC maturity remains below 40%.

“Interlining is still not resolved. Flight disruptions are still not resolved. Through baggage check-in across different carriers is still not resolved. It is still a very point-to-point, incomplete product,” he told T3.

He argued that airlines continue to depend on GDS infrastructure for complex servicing, even as they push differentiated content through NDC. To simplify the experience for travel agencies, ITQ has introduced a Content Optimiser that lets agencies define rules to modify search results. It can combine NDC and traditional EDIFACT content into a single search response.

Instead of requiring agencies to search separate channels, the platform removes duplicate results, identifies the best options and presents a unified display.

The company is also continuing to add new NDC airlines while exploring additional low-cost carrier content through Travelport, including recently announced integrations such as Akasa Air, with more carriers expected to follow.

Business intelligence becomes the next growth engine

Beyond search and booking, ITQ is investing in business intelligence tools that will help travel businesses better understand customer behaviour and improve commercial decision-making.

Because ITQ does not own end-customer data, it is focusing on analytical tools that customers can use alongside Travelport’s core content.

Unlike large OTAs that build proprietary technology, India’s mid-sized agencies often lack the resources to develop their own platforms. Tewari believes this segment presents one of the biggest opportunities. “The mid-sized players rely on us. We read the market carefully and develop booking tools, corporate booking tools and expense management solutions around their requirements.”

ITQ already powers several major corporate booking and automation platforms while also investing in specialised expense management technology through strategic investments.

The company's technology today supports large corporate travel programmes and continues expanding into workflow automation.

As part of its wider technology portfolio, ITQ has also introduced TravelPro, an industry-specific CRM platform built exclusively for travel companies. Developed after extensive consultations with leisure operators, MICE specialists, TMCs and travel agencies, TravelPro includes lead management, documentation tracking, visa and passport reminders and automated communication tools spanning email, WhatsApp and chat.

The company is placing particular emphasis on Tier II and Tier III markets, where digital adoption is accelerating, and demand is moving beyond India’s largest metropolitan cities. Rather than reducing its regional presence, ITQ intends to deepen engagement with local agencies to identify new opportunities and support their digital transformation.

For Tewari, the changes sweeping through travel distribution are unprecedented.

Margins are shrinking, low-cost carriers continue gaining market share, GDS economics are evolving, AI is disrupting traditional workflows, and travel demand remains exceptionally strong. Yet he remains optimistic.

“Demand is strong. We are in the right country at the right time. But we have to do much more—not just manage the business, but train people to manage the future.”