How Spotnana’s System of Record works

The broken foundation: Why we built a modern system of record for travel

When I started Spotnana, my goal was to rebuild the foundation of travel technology. For too long, our industry has been running on a broken infrastructure, leading to a cascade of problems that everyone—corporations, travelers, travel providers, and TMCs—feels every single day.

The root of this dysfunction is the data, not the user interface or booking tool. The entire corporate travel industry has been built on a temporary, text-based record—the Passenger Name Record (PNR)—that was never designed to be a permanent database. This has created a wild west of data fragmentation that makes true innovation impossible.

That’s why we built Spotnana’s System of Record. It’s not a patch on an old system. It’s a complete reimagining of how travel data should be managed, and it’s the key to unlocking the intelligent, automated, and seamless future our industry deserves.

The problem: Data fragmentation

If you work in travel, you live with data chaos. The problem is multi-dimensional fragmentation that gets worse with every step you take.

At its core, the information about a single trip is scattered and stored in non-standardized formats. Key details, such as cost centers or policy information, are added as unstructured, free-flowing text into a PNR, with formats that change from one TMC to the next. 

This creates a domino effect of failures:

• Data is temporary. A PNR is designed to be expunged after a set period, disappearing unless a special command is added. The record of a trip is designed to vanish.
  
• Profiles are not portable. If a traveler moves from their company’s U.S. office to the UK, their entire travel history is often lost. They start from scratch on a new profile, in a different system.
  
• New content sources break everything. As the industry moves toward new sources like NDC, the old systems struggle under the weight of added complexity and cost. TMCs are forced to book on a new platform and then manually create a GDS passive segment, so data can flow into their back-office systems.
• Travel providers operate in the dark. Airlines and hotels have insufficient data at the time of booking to personalize a travel offer, and they are unable to see key details of an entire trip, adding complexity to handling travel disruptions.
• Reporting is a nightmare. This fragmentation makes it impossible for companies to get a clear picture of their travel spend in real-time. The result is a week-long lag just to get basic reports, or even longer delays for multi-national corporations that have to have data manually integrated from disparate OBT deployments and TMC partners.

For decades, the industry’s answer has been to throw more bodies and more third-party tools at the problem. Agencies have had to rely on manual fixes for a fundamentally broken data model.

Our solution: A new foundation for travel data

From day one, we designed Spotnana to be independent of the PNR. We don’t use the GDS as a data entry tool; we use it for what it was meant for—as a source of content and channel to make bookings.

Our System of Record is the solution to the industry’s core data problem. It works by establishing a new, modern foundation for all travel data, including bookings, profiles, configurations, and analytics.

1. Central, normalized database

All booking and supplementary data, including trip details, policy information, cost centers, and preferences, is stored in our normalized database, not a PNR. Regardless of whether a booking comes from an aggregator, an NDC connection, or a direct connection, we ingest the data and structure it in a consistent format. This eliminates the need for manual data entry, messy servicing workarounds, and a travel agency mid-office.

2. Permanent, universal traveler IDs

At Spotnana, every traveler has a permanent, unique identifier that follows them within their organization. It doesn’t matter if they book from a different country, use a different content source, or switch between booking online and with an agent—we know who they are and can normalize their activity in one unified place.

3. Universal trip container

All bookings and data related to a trip are linked via a single trip ID, making it easy for travelers, agents, (and someday) travel providers to understand how all parts of a trip are connected. This improves servicing and enables greater automation, such as the ability to cancel all parts of a trip with one click.

4. Order management system independent of the PNR

Spotnana processes bookings directly through the integrations we build with each source of travel content. No PNR required. This allows us to take full advantage of the booking and servicing capabilities available through each API and eliminates the need for passive GDS segments for non-GDS bookings. It also means Spotnana is already architected to support the coming transition to a post-PNR world as airlines deploy Offer / Order systems over the next few years.

5. Real-time processing and reporting

Data is processed in real time because our system is built on modern APIs and a true database. When a trip is booked, it appears in reports instantly, not weeks later. This single change eliminates the need for an entire ecosystem of mid-office and back-office tools that exist only to clean up and format broken data.

The dawn of an intelligent travel industry

Fixing the data foundation is key to unlocking the future of travel.

With a true System of Record, we can finally move beyond the manual processes that are needed with text-based PNRs. We can provide the clean, structured, foundational data that makes real AI and machine learning possible—something our industry has lagged in for 20 years.

We can give airlines and hotels clear insights into who is traveling with them, opening up new merchandising opportunities. We can empower corporations to make data-driven decisions that lead to real cost savings. Most importantly, we can build a new layer of automation that reduces costs and improves shopping, booking, and servicing experiences for everyone.

This is why I started Spotnana: to build a new infrastructure for the entire travel ecosystem.

Our System of Record is the bedrock of that vision. It makes travel data a utility—clean, accessible, and actionable.

We’re building an open, intelligent, and modern foundation for global travel. We welcome everyone to join us on this journey — whether you’re a travel seller, travel provider, a TMC, or a developer — we’d love to work with you.