In 2025, traditional travel agencies substantially increased their adoption of New Distribution Capability (NDC), a data interface that increases airlines' merchandising options for agency sales.
Publish Time：
2026-01-28 10:16:26
Source：
Travel Weekly
In 2025, traditional travel agencies substantially increased their adoption of New Distribution Capability (NDC), a data interface that increases airlines' merchandising options for agency sales.
According to ARC, leisure travel agencies accounted for 16% of settled NDC transactions in 2025 while corporate agencies accounted for 7%. The remaining 77% were transacted by online travel agencies (OTAs), which have long been the primary users of NDC.
A year earlier, leisure agencies accounted for 11% of NDC transactions, while TMCs accounted for 4%. OTAs had the remaining 85%.
Traditional travel agencies, especially corporate agencies, have long been hesitant to adopt NDC, in part due to the cost and complexity of developing compliant technology and back-office processes, but also due to limited post-sale servicing capabilities in the GDSs.
Those concerns have often won out for agencies even though airlines can offer more ancillary products, fare bundles and airfare price points via NDC.
However, the GDSs have improved their NDC capabilities. In an interview this past fall, Accelya chief customer success officer Tye Radcliffe said travel advisors are finding that "they're able to service NDC bookings better than they were before." Accelya is the leading NDC software developer.
"Both the agencies themselves and home-based contractors working for larger agencies are getting information now from multiple sources that are helping them feel more confident about what NDC is all about," Radcliffe said.
ARC's numbers show that corporate agencies' share of NDC transactions started at 6% in January of 2025 and reached as high as 10% in October and November of last year.
ARC spokesman Randy Spoon said corporate agencies "continue to make strides in NDC adoption" and that ARC's NDC Advancement Working Group has helped make things easier through the creation of best practices. The group, made up of airlines, travel technology providers and travel agencies, was established in early 2024.
Leisure agency NDC share was 21% in December, much higher than the full-year figure of 16%.
Overall, NDC transactions accounted for 21.2% of total ARC-settled transactions in December 2025, up from 20.3% in December 2024. That month, a total of 1,139 travel agencies reported NDC transactions.
