AMADEUS produces industry-leading solutions for travel agencies, airlines, airports and corporations and the region’s travel agents are keen to learn more about the technology that is available.
The company showcased its latest innovations at Arabian Travel Market earlier this year spotlighting its TravelTainment Vision Wall prototype, which is aimed at inspiring customers to travel, as well as Amadeus ePackages - the new online tour package management solution.
Nasser Batha, regional markets direcector (Mena) says: “It’s very pleasing to see more and more agents interested in technology today. There are a couple of areas they are keener to learn about – including the e-portals, mobile applications and content other than air.
“We gave them a preview of the new breadth of Amadeus non-air content and demonstrations of the customised and customer-focused IT solutions for travel agencies that match and support their unique business needs.”
The Amadeus Content Store Middle East solution, which is powered by Travel Boutique Online, is the region’s first tool of its kind to provide such a diverse wealth of content. It incorporates a single screen access to search, compare and book hotel content from the most popular wholesalers and aggregators in the region. Fully integrated with the Amadeus selling platform, the world’s most-used retailing application for travel professionals, the new solution offers seamless information flow to mid-back office and accounting systems meaning fewer overheads on the travel agency.
With content from multiple aggregators available for the first time, the agents have access to the widest variety of inventory and pricing options in a matter of seconds. This leads to increased hotel bookings which translate into increased sales for the agency.
The solution is completely flexible and customisable with branded vouchers, itineraries and payment methods that suit the requirements of an individual business.
To be able to pre-pay for the hotel / package is an extremely important requirement for many travellers and agencies in the region; with Amadeus Content Store Middle East this will now be possible. The solution was piloted earlier this year and a regional roll out is underway.
Batha added: “This is one of the many initiatives in place to extend even further our hotel content based on the needs of our travel agency customers.
“The Middle East is a very unique region and the agents need to be able to provide the right content, at the right price and in a very efficient way. We want to continue to introduce new technology developments to increase the efficiency for the travel agency community.”
Looking ahead, Batha stressed four key areas for growth - the smart phone, ancillary services which airlines, for example, are merchandising effectively, the ability for corporate sales to book online and lastly, but most importantly, engaging consumers via social media tools.