OCTO - Open Connectivity for Tours, Activities and Attractions

🌏 Welcome Trip.com Group to OCTO! 🚀 We’re excited to announce Trip.com Group joining as an official OCTO member! Already leveraging OCTO specs live to connect with attractions and reservation systems, Trip.com is now driving innovation by actively contributing to new capabilities like content. The photos below are from the Trip.com Group Global Partner Summit in Abu Dhabi, where using OCTO standards to grow your attractions and tours business took the center stage. Welcome, Trip.com Group! Let’s shape the future of travel together. Learn more about our mission to make connectivity easier and more efficient here 🔗www.octo.travel

🚀 Thanks for using OCTO's API standards, Groupon! If you’re in the attractions, tours, or experiences industry, make sure to use OCTO to streamline your API connections.

Welcome to the community, Palisis! Glad you’re here. #octo

🆘 If you work in the attraction, tour or activities space, then you’ve probably experienced the TEDIOUS process of working with content. Gobs of man hours are spent sharing spreadsheets to update the attraction’s description, details of the offer, hours, etc.(!). Asset libraries and portals can be just as cumbersome. 😡 Well good news, OCTO is here to help! 🙌 Currently, there are no standards in our sector to organize and streamline content management over an API, but we’re changing that. We have a mix of experts in the industry working together on the new Content Capability, and a draft is in the works. 📩 Want to learn more? Reach out to us at sayhello@octo.travel or join us at Arival in San Diego on September 30th. 🔁 Please share this with your marketing, trade, and prod/tech teams - & join OCTO to stay in the know and provide direct feedback. Early shoutout to our current team leads Christian Watts, Dominic Martinkevic, Ben Smithart, & Christopher Lovatt for their ongoing efforts on the first proposed draft, and thanks to Melanie White for a prelim review of it. More to come. 🔗www.octo.travel #OCTO #OCTOMembership #Attractions #Tours #Experiences #API #ContentIntegration #ArivalSanDiego #TravelTech

🚀 Exciting News from OCTO! 🚀 At OCTO, we’re here to simplify API connectivity in the attractions, tours, and experiences sector. Today we’re thrilled to announce another step forward as we work to achieve our mission. We have a new release to share, the Notifications Capability (a.k.a. "webhooks"). What it brings to the table for attractions and their resellers: 📲 Real-time Updates: Immediate notifications for crucial events like order confirmations and system alerts. 💡 Reduced Polling & Resource Use: Lower server load and network traffic, making systems more efficient and scalable. Did we lose you there? Here’s a couple quick examples of how you might use this capability in the wild: ➡️ If a timeslot for an activity sells out, immediate notifications can be sent to resellers. 🎉 Also multi-attraction pass providers can notify an attraction that a customer has redeemed a visit after an initial reservation has been made. 🥳 📣 Thank you to our Specifications Committee for their collaboration on this release, with a shoutout to Jim Fritchman (Gateway Ticketing), Dominic Martinkevic (Ventrata), and Ben Smithart (Peek) for helping it come to life. Join at Arival 360 in San Diego to learn more, hope to see you there. 🙌 https://lnkd.in/emvgkw36 #OCTO #CapabilityRelease #Connectivity #Innovation #Arival360

Here at OCTO, we get really excited when we make new connections. Find out what we've been up to here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gTa9Ptt5 Please message us if you want to know more about how OCTO can help simplify connectivity for businesses working with attractions, tours, and activities. And hope you'll join us in-person at Arival 360 in San Diego!

📣 Notifications Capability in Public Review The Specification committee has reviewed and updated the notifications capability. The draft for the updated specification is complete and the capability is now ready for public review.   ✅ Member review - Feb. 26 - Mar. 22 (4 Weeks) - Members only ✅   Specification committee update/review - Mar. 25 - Apr. 23  🗓️ Public review - June 10 (1 Week) - Open to all 🗓️ Spec committee final review - June 17 (1 Week) 🗓️ Board Vote - June 24 🗓️ Public Release - July 1, 2024 You can find the proposed notifications capability here: https://lnkd.in/gCH8WhUp

🚀 Exciting News: the first OCTO Board Elections are Here! 🌟 Four board seats are up for the first round of elections at OCTO, and we need YOUR organization's vote to shape the future of our industry. If you’re passionate about how attractions, tours, and experiences connect between operators and resellers, you should be an active member of OCTO. Our board consists of: 🎡Operators of tour, activities, and attraction experiences 💰Sales Distribution Companies like OTAs and resellers 👩💻Technology Providers such as restechs or ticketing software companies Meet the Nominees: Jigger Abendano, CRME (he/him/his), Senior VP at GoCity (Reseller/Distribution Representative) Oskar Bruening, CTO & Founder of Peek (Technology Representative, Seeking Re-Election) Nicholas Hurd, CEO of Niagara Falls Adventures (Supplier Representative) Chris Neal, CTO of Redeam (Technology Representative, Seeking Re-Election) Stephen Oddo, Walks Co-Founder (Supplier Representative) Douglas Quinby, Co-Founder & CEO of Arival (Non-Supplier Representative, Seeking Re-Election) Christian Watts, Founder & CEO of Magpie Travel (Technology Representative, Seeking Re-Election) 🗓️ Election Timeline: May 14, 2024: Election ballots sent May 20, 2024: Ballots submission deadline May 21, 2024: Winners announced June 1, 2024: New board members installed Join us now to ensure your voice is heard! Each member has a vote for our board elections, and all organizations that join OCTO will help us shape the future of connectivity in our sector. https://www.octo.travel/ Thank you for your support, OCTO Board of Directors Oskar Bruening Tom Chiarella Carrie Keplinger Caitlin Montgomery Oliver Morgan Chris Neal Douglas Quinby Christian Watts Nastassia Welter OCTO Executive Director Stephen Joyce

🚀 Exciting News: the first OCTO Board Elections are Here! 🌟 Four board seats are up for the first round of elections at OCTO, and we need YOUR organization's vote to shape the future of our industry. If you’re passionate about how attractions, tours, and experiences connect between operators and resellers, you should be an active member of OCTO. Our board consists of: 🎡Operators of tour, activities, and attraction experiences 💰Sales Distribution Companies like OTAs and resellers 👩💻Technology Providers such as restechs or ticketing software companies Meet the Nominees: Jigger Abendano, CRME (he/him/his), Senior VP at GoCity (Reseller/Distribution Representative) Oskar Bruening, CTO & Founder of Peek (Technology Representative, Seeking Re-Election) Nicholas Hurd, CEO of Niagara Falls Adventures (Supplier Representative) Chris Neal, CTO of Redeam (Technology Representative, Seeking Re-Election) Stephen Oddo, Walks Co-Founder (Supplier Representative) Douglas Quinby, Co-Founder & CEO of Arival (Non-Supplier Representative, Seeking Re-Election) Christian Watts, Founder & CEO of Magpie Travel (Technology Representative, Seeking Re-Election) 🗓️ Election Timeline: May 14, 2024: Election ballots sent May 20, 2024: Ballots submission deadline May 21, 2024: Winners announced June 1, 2024: New board members installed Join us now to ensure your voice is heard! Each member has a vote for our board elections, and all organizations that join OCTO will help us shape the future of connectivity in our sector. https://www.octo.travel/ Thank you for your support, OCTO Board of Directors Oskar Bruening Tom Chiarella Carrie Keplinger Caitlin Montgomery Oliver Morgan Chris Neal Douglas Quinby Christian Watts Nastassia Welter OCTO Executive Director Stephen Joyce

We're just two years into OCTO, and there is a lot to celebrate! Our mission has always been clear: to make connectivity easier and more efficient for the tours, attractions, and experiences sector of the travel industry. And thanks our members and the wider community, we're making it happen. Some achievements to date: 🎢OCTO has attracted a diverse mix of suppliers, resellers, and technology companies as active members, supporting the development and use of standards. 🏆The OCTO Core Specification launched and is now implemented with 138 connections between suppliers and resellers, and growing. 💰OCTO's pricing capability was released in December 2023 and has been widely adopted as an add-on to the Core. 🚀We are excited about the upcoming launch of our Notifications Capability and the ongoing development of the Content Capability, both of which have active sponsor support. 🎓Coming soon: We're currently working on an OCTO Professional Certification program to help our members become more educated on APIs and the use of standards. 📝 Questions or feedback? Perhaps want to volunteer to help the cause? Drop us a note at sayhello@octo.travel or join us live at Arival in San Diego this fall, Sept 30 to Oct 3. We appreciate your support.