Livn has worked through the myriad of data, industry and technological challenges, to create a single API which then seamlessly provides access to over than 20 individual reservation systems. This industry-specific complexity has been the primary reason for online bookings only representing 3% of the total number of tours & activities (T&A) bookings made. Offline bookings, primarily made or finalised via phone and email currently account for more than 80% of all T&A bookings, according to leading industry researcher Phocuswright.

Steve Martinez, Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, believes the advent of Livn will present a whole new world of immediate opportunity to online travel agencies (OTAs) and offline travel agencies (“Bricks & Mortar”) into the online world of T&A now that the biggest barrier to entry for them has been resolved.

Martinez commented, “Historically, any one of our partners had to build integrations to 20 different booking systems, each with different frameworks and parameters. With the lack of data consistency across the industry, it was an absolute mess and was preventing this incredibly popular sector of our industry from reaping the benefits of the digital era.”

The Livn vision was to adopt a GDS approach, and build a single harmonised, unified data structure.

Over a number of years, and with an AUD10 million dollar budget, this has now been achieved, bringing a number of benefits to any of the partners.

Martinez added, “Our distribution partners are able to benefit from automated integration from a single touch point, which means they can be in market in eight weeks, rather than 18 months it would have taken previously. Further, our partners are now able to focus on what they do best – creating wonderful travel experiences – rather than struggling with technological integrations across a suite of fragmented booking systems.”

Thanks to its open network, any upgrades are delivered instantaneously, ensuring all information, dynamic pricing and features are up to the minute. In turn, the partners will see lower ongoing technology costs as a result of not having to maintain and upgrade each of the integrations to individual booking systems.

Through a single API integration with Livn, travel retailers can connect to 15,000 tour operators with more than 700,000 instantly bookable tours and activities.