Interview: Mustafa Korkmaz, Global Director-API Business at TBO.com

After holding senior positions in different bedbanks for more than 10 years, Mustafa has been in charge of the global API business at TBO for the past two years.
 
TBO is a global platform that aims to simplify all travel buying and selling needs of travel partners worldwide. The proprietary technology platform and travel APIs aim to simplify the demands of the complex world of global travel by seamlessly connecting highly distributed travel buyers and suppliers on a large scale.

In this interview, we asked Mustafa about how the industry has changed and the key challenges for the season. He also explains how TravelgateX helps his business.

- What are some of the biggest challenges for your sector right now?
- The unpredictability stemming from the war between Russia and Ukraine, increasing number of Coronavirus cases and differing government responses are the main challenges now. On top of that, high inflation looming over the globe is already having an impact on flight prices, which may cause further issues.
 
- What do you think are some of the biggest opportunities for the travel industry in 2022?
 - There is a significant demand to travel after most of the countries lifted or eased the restrictions. The term ‘revenge travel’ came to reality as most companies in travel distribution domain are close to pre-COVID-19 levels. However, as evidenced with the chaos at certain airports due to inadequate customer service of the airlines, hotels and airports, travelling is not as smooth, but it looks like travellers are not discouraged by that just yet.
 
- What is a crazy or out-of-the-box product or technology that you would personally like?
 - There may be some similar examples already, but I would like to have a single API that supports different products standalone and allows dynamic packaging and also supports both pull and push methods.
 
- What is your favourite thing about working in hospitality/Travel/Tourism?
 - It is the travelling obviously.  Additionally, the use of technology in our industry is second to none.
 
- How does TravelgateX add value to your business? 
 - TravelgateX makes the connectivity much easier for both buying and selling. We are adding suppliers that we would not have thought of integrating if we would be limited to just our own resources. This facilitated to fill the niches in our inventory and to create additional revenue for us. Same applies to selling as well.
 
- What suggestions/challenges would you give to the TeamX?
- I can suggest them to keep the partner focused approach. As a challenge I would expect from TeamX to provide more actionable insights to the partners.
 
- Can you talk more about solutions that you think will be most impactful in the next 12 to 18 months as travel begins to recover?
 - Although there has been a significant progress, the level of personalisation is still not high. So, I expect AI to be deployed more broadly to improve the customer experience.
 
- What are the plans for 2023? Looking ahead to the next year, what are you top two or three priorities?
- The key objective is to make TBO.com platform frictionless for all users. To achieve that goal, we are aiming to use automation more broadly in operations, finance etc. As a company we have come a long way to be a completely data driven organization, but the journey is still going on and it will keep being our focus.
 
- What advice do you have for young people just entering the travel technology space?
 -  I advise them to be curious, to never shy away from asking questions to learn and improve themselves.