From Cabins to Complex Vacations: How Cruise Lines Are Transforming Through API-First Innovation

From Cabins to Complex Vacations: How Cruise Lines Are Transforming Through API-First Innovation
Speaker: Santhosh Jose, Product Manager, API, Data and AI at IBS Software Plc

Cruise industry is experiencing a massive shift — moving from selling cabins to delivering personalized, complex vacation experiences that span pre-cruise, onboard, and post-cruise journeys. This evolution is driven by unprecedented demand and changing guest expectations.

In this session from apidays Paris 2025, Santhosh Jose (Product Manager at IBS Software) breaks down the digital architecture required to power the next generation of travel. This deck explores the strategic shift to an API-first mindset, where APIs are treated as high-value products rather than simple integrations.

Key Takeaways:
• Modern API Design: Leveraging OpenAPI and Overlay to automate and customize API versions at scale.

• Pipeline Automation: Building custom API pipeline management tools to accelerate digital transformation.

• The Shift to Agentic AI: Preparing API ecosystems for autonomous agents that shop, plan, and transact for the guest.

• Complex Ecosystems: Lessons from the cruise industry that apply to the broader travel and hospitality tech landscape.

Whether you are in travel tech or enterprise digital transformation, this presentation offers a blueprint for building scalable, future-ready ecosystems.

Transcript

1. From cabins to vacations Transforming the cruise industry through an API-first approach
2. Santhosh Jose Product Head Speaker
3. What are we talking about today? Who will this benefit? API Governance program leads API Governance tooling vendors API Product managers and developers Entrepreneurs 1 The significance of APIs in the cruise industry 2 Our evolution to support the API needs of cruise lines 3 The mistakes that we made (so that you can learn from it) 4 In-house automation efforts (thanks to vibe-coding) 5 API Governance Problem Roadmap
4. 3 facts about the cruise industry Fastest growing travel segment Expeditions, private destinations. Ancillaries (drinks packages, spa treatments, specialty dining). Partners with other providers to sell tours, hotels, flights, transfers. Selling much more than cabins on a ship Majority distribution is through travel agents 1 2 3 9.3% jump in ocean- going cruisers globally from 2023 to 2024. 2.3% increase in number of ocean-cruise fleet. ….and many other signals…. - - - Sales through third party channels such as travel agents can be upwards of 85% of total sales.
5. Our API transformation journey Consolidated inventory of external APIs Where we were Where we are Where we want to be No API inventory / registry End-to-end automation of API governance…. and thereby eliminate my position Code-first, documentation later (maybe?) Design first Huge bloated APIs RESTful-ish APIs MS Word documentation distributed via emails OpenAPI documentation published in Dev Portals Different styles and patterns between APIs Adherence to common styleguide for design Bring our events catalog into the same program Address the items in our problem roadmap
6. 3 top learnings from our journey Product Do not set up separate teams for APIs alone; the same team that owns the domain should own the API as well. People Process 1 2 3 Do not re-use the external API product for internal uses. Do not force fit a previously proven process to a new organization. Start with an overall direction and let the process grow organically.
7. 3 of our vibe-coded automation tools Spac3 Apply custom styleguides onto OpenAPI documents. One-shot Autogen 1 2 3 Convert OpenAPI documents into Excel sheets and vice-versa. Create new OpenAPI documents based on custom styleguides. Used by technical writers and product owners to manage descriptions, examples. Used by solution architects to convert legacy OpenAPI docs to standardized format. Used by solution architects to generate the base standardized OpenAPI document faster.
8. Overlay Overlay file editor with side-by-side viewer. Process overlay files to generate modified OpenAPI files. Arazzo Interactive UI to show sequencing of API calls. Client SDK generation Generate client SDKs in multiple languages. Server-side code generation Generate boiler plate code in our languages and frameworks. Business KPI observability Detailed observability and analytics on the payload and request parameters. Our problem roadmap Solve these for us