TMC technology provider TripStax has highlighted the growth of?non-GDS travel bookings being made through its system.

The UK-based tech firm said that the number of ¡°passive segments¡± that have gone through its central TripStax Core since it was created three years ago will reach the one million milestone during Business Travel Show Europe in London this week.

Passive segments are used by the travel industry to allow non-GDS bookings to be processed by travel agency¡¯s internal systems. This has typically required agents to input flight numbers, dates, times and other details into the GDS PNR to ensure the booking is properly documented and tracked.

TripStax said there are an average of two passive segments per booking with an overall trip value averaging ?500, according to its data.

The company added that this was a ¡°core indicator of the volume of bookings that TMCs are making outside of the primary GDS channels¡±. This is monitored closely by TripStax as part of several projects it is working on with key customers and partners.

David Chappell, chief product officer at TripStax, added: ¡°Thanks to the increasing adoption of NDC, as airlines and content providers look to distribute directly to agents and consumers, the growing reliance on the GDS to continue to enable TMCs¡¯ downstream systems via the humble passive segment intensifies.¡±

What happens to this so-called ¡°Passive PNR¡± and what it means for the state of the industry will be discussed during a ¡°fireside chat¡± at Business Show Travel Europe on Wednesday (25 June) at 2pm on TripStax¡¯s stand (M50).