Amadeus has agreed to acquire TravelClick from Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, for US$1.52bn. TravelClick, which is headquartered in New York City, is a leading global hospitality provider that serves more than 25,000 customers across 176 countries. It provides cloud-based solutions, including an independent and mid-size hotel Central Reservation System (CRS) and Guest Management Solution (GMS), as well as business intelligence and media solutions.

Luis Maroto, President and CEO of Amadeus said, “TravelClick has a great team, great technology and a broad customer base, and we are looking forward to welcoming such a successful business into Amadeus. Our ambition is to provide the hospitality industry with the tools they need to grow their businesses and deliver a great experience to their guests. The combination of our two portfolios will allow us to provide that to hotels of all shapes and sizes across the world.”

While Amadeus already has a strong portfolio of hotels from within the major brands, the TravelClick acquisition gives the company access to a good number of mid-chain and independent hotels that make up almost three-quarters of the market. As part of the acquisition, approximately 1,100 TravelClick employees are expected to join Amadeus.

Image source: Hotel Business

Larry Kutscher, CEO, TravelClick said, “This deal marks the next stage in TravelClick’s incredible journey of success in delivering groundbreaking solutions for hoteliers. I couldn’t be more proud of our team, or more excited about the impact our combined companies will have on the hospitality industry as we begin to deliver the next generation of innovation for hoteliers.”

Amadeus and Thoma Bravo expect to close the acquisition in the fourth quarter of the calendar year 2018, following regulatory approvals. The transaction will be debt-financed and immediately earnings accretive.

Holden Spaht, managing partner at Thoma Bravo said, “TravelClick is an excellent example of Thoma Bravo’s proven investment approach of acquiring a best in class vertical market software company and working alongside talented leadership to implement operational best practices and drive growth both organically and through M&A. We appreciate the outstanding execution of Larry Kutscher and the management team at TravelClick, and believe the company is well positioned to continue delivering innovative software, data analytics and marketing services that maximize revenue for hotels around the world.”

Also read: Amadeus India to groom hotel segment with new tech products.

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Imagine sitting in your hotel room or your office’s conference area, and being checked-in for your flight even before you leave for the airport. This is just one of the options that Amadeus’ Airport Common Use Service (ACUS) offers to improve the way airports and airlines serve their passengers.

Amadeus has introduced ACUS to key stakeholders in the Indian aviation industry at India’s first Common Use Roundtable, an event that was held recently, and hosted by Amadeus and Bird Group. The launch of Amadeus ACUS means, airports in India can offer a futuristic, more efficient and convenient check-in service as the number of international and domestic travellers increases.

Image source: Airport Suppliers

India has experienced a six-fold increase in air passenger numbers over the past decade as its citizens take advantage of better connectivity and cheaper fares. This has also brought the problem of congested airports. The architecture of Amadeus ACUS allows ‘fixed’ check-in counters to be rapidly re-deployed anywhere within the terminal, and to ‘off airport’ locations, to enable the airport to access additional passenger capacity on demand to meet short notice or seasonal fluctuations.

Amadeus Airport Common Use Service represents a leap forward in common use platforms. Leveraging cloud technology to deliver application virtualisation, ACUS brings greater business agility, operational resilience, scalability and flexibility to make passenger processing more efficient than ever before. ACUS is also fast and easy to implement and can be used on a PC, laptop or mobile device, once a secure network connection is in place.

Some of ACUS’ key features include- application virtualization technology, delivered via SaaS model, centrally hosted in a state-of-the-art data center, based on secure network connectivity and 4G communications, connection to all airline Departure Control System and airport applications, complete end-to-end solution delivery, compatible with industry standards, and one Common Use platform for all airports.

The common use platform contributes to achieving substantial cost savings, by eliminating the need for costly on-site servers and ongoing maintenance, as well as reducing energy costs. Providing airports, airlines and ground handlers with a complete end-to-end solution, ACUS is fully scalable and can be adapted to unique business needs. It helps gain ‘real’ business agility by deploying and relocating operations rapidly and seamlessly, anywhere on and off the airport.

Sarah Samuel, Head of Airport IT, Asia Pacific of Amadeus said, “The rapid growth of passengers travelling in India means airports are under a lot pressure. Now more than ever, they need to think differently to provide the service expected by consumers. The airport industry has advanced tremendously from the days of dedicated airline check-in desks towards a much more flexible and shared environment.”

Airlines across the world are already running many critical applications that are centrally hosted and accessible by their agents via the internet. The airport industry can now follow this trend with Amadeus ACUS, to enable the ecosystem to use its resources wisely, ultimately improving passenger experience and moving towards becoming the airport of the future.

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With 70 per cent of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050 – a substantial increase from 55 per cent today – cities around the world are looking to maximize the use of their resources with artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies.

Today Amadeus announces the creation of a taskforce dedicated to leading its new Smart Cities offer in Asia Pacific, enabling Smart Mobility for the world’s most densely populated cities and changing the way we will live and travel in the future.

Smart Mobility, how people travel into and move around a city, is integral to governments’ plans worldwide to develop their urban spaces into Smart Cities in order to bring greater efficiency as we grow into a larger, more interconnected world.

Spanning the breadth of the travel industry, Amadeus is uniquely positioned to be at the heart of the development of Smart Cities. Amadeus’ offer will leverage the company’s IT backbone to enable true mobility across the entire travel journey, creating seamless door-to-door travel experiences. Led by Simon Akeroyd, Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Business Development, Asia Pacific at Amadeus, the Smart Cities offer will help cities best use existing infrastructure and new technology in order to improve tourism as well as residents’ daily commutes.

“As urbanization increases and governments are faced with challenges around traffic congestion, pollution, inadequate energy and resources, it will be vital for cities to harness technologies to solve complex problems,” says Akeroyd. “The future of travel will be driven by multi-modal journeys and data to deliver more personalized and smart experiences. The rise of Smart Cities will boost travel and tourism, and so the public and private sector must collaborate to share data and use technology. When done successfully, we believe that this will enable the immersive travel experiences and services that citizens and travelers expect in the future.”

Amadeus will collaborate with the public sector and governments to deliver solutions that enable the Smart Cities of the future. In 2017, Amadeus committed US$800 million to research and development for innovation globally, half of which was directly linked to technologies that furthered its Smart Mobility initiatives – including biometrics, traveler identification, IoT, massive data platforms and passenger handling solutions. In addition to this investment and to further its commitment to Smart Cities, 2016 and 2017 saw Amadeus invest a total of US$1.5 billion across strategic focus areas including Airport IT and Hotel IT through acquisitions.

Asia is a strategic focus for Amadeus’ Smart Cities solution, given 22 of the 39 megacities worldwide are in Asia Pacific, and 11 alone are in China. Additionally, Asia’s large population and emerging middle class means the next billion Asian travelers are just around the corner, with half of global air passenger traffic expected to come from Asia by 2030.

Amadeus is currently working on a number of key projects in Asia Pacific that support Asia’s Smart Cities’ initiatives. Some of these include:

• Smart Tourism – Amadeus is working closely with National Tourism Boards in Asia to help cities attract more inbound travelers and have a better understanding around their preferences. This is done through both Travel Intelligence and Digital Advertising, using big data to help cities make better decisions.
• Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) and Amadeus worked together to deploy the world’s first hot-swappable battery powered movable check-in kiosks, called iCUSS, with both a self-service and full-service mode, reinventing the entire check-in experience. The versatile cloud-based mobile kiosks are powered by Amadeus’ common use technology and can be rapidly deployed and relocated for use by the traveler to check-in themselves or by the airport staff to provide full-service operations. The airport can now say goodbye to different systems and fixed locations, meaning greater freedom and flexibility to serve passengers throughout their journey to and around the airport.

Amadeus’ new Smart Cities taskforce builds on existing mobility projects across Amadeus’ global business. One example is the European Union (EU)’s ‘The Shift to Rail (S2R) Innovation Program 4,’ which uses Amadeus’ IT solutions to deliver fully integrated, multimodal passenger services for long and short trips in Europe. Another example of innovation in this field from Amadeus’ Airlines team is a partnership with Lufthansa, where the airline is using Amadeus’ facial recognition technology to vastly reduce passenger boarding times at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

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Amadeus and Flight Centre Travel Group announced that Amadeus will be providing distribution technology for Flight Centre’s business across EMEA and Asia. As one of Flight Centre’s partners of choice, Amadeus will be working hand-in-hand with Flight Centre to transform its IT and operations through innovative solutions and support expansion in these regions.

Flight Centre will also be a driver customer in the creation of Amadeus’ new NDC-enabled solution for business and retail travel agencies. The two companies will work together, with Flight Centre providing input into Amadeus’ design and build of an NDC-enabled solution. This will enable travel sellers worldwide to shop, order and pay for flights and related services, in addition to changing and cancelling bookings, using the NDC standard in Amadeus Selling Platform Connect.

Image source: Amadeus

Amadeus has already started to collaborate with several airlines to define a solution that gives travel agents access to travel content using the NDC standard. The objective is to make NDC content easy to access and compare so travel providers and sellers can serve travellers simply, quickly and accurately.

Graham Turner, Managing Director, Flight Centre Travel Group, said, “Our approach has always been to evolve with industry developments and the needs of our customers in order to aggregate and offer the widest, most relevant content possible. We are committed to ensuring Flight Centre stays ahead of the curve in terms of GDS technology and systems, particularly as new initiatives like NDC emerge. That’s why we are excited to have partnered with Amadeus in our Asia and EMEA businesses. We wanted a leading technology partner, not just a GDS supplier, who could work with us to drive our business forward with tech innovation for the benefit of our customers.”

Rajiv Rajian, EVP of Business Travel, Amadeus, said, “We are proud to be delivering Flight Centre’s distribution and IT needs and we’re excited to have Flight Centre as a driver customer on our NDC journey. As we progress on our NDC-X program, we’re also evolving our entire travel platform to bring together all relevant content from any source (GDS, NDC, airline proprietary APIs, and aggregators) to be distributed via any channel or device. The first evolution of our platform is underway and will give travel sellers, like Flight Centre, access to more content, and will give airlines the flexibility to distribute their products and offers however they choose.”

Amadeus is committed to achieving the NDC level 3 certification as an aggregator this year, followed by delivering a first fully scalable solution to travel sellers worldwide in 2019. This will then continue to develop and evolve, adding more sophisticated use cases along the way.

Flight Centre’s travel agents will adopt a range of Amadeus solutions in the following markets: EMEA (United Kingdom, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, South Africa, Namibia, and UAE) and Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and India). In Australia and New Zealand, Amadeus will also provide technology solutions for some of Flight Centre’s online travel agency businesses. Amadeus is also a key IT partner to help Flight Centre grow its business in new markets and segments.

Read more about Amadeus’ solution to blockchain transforming the travel industry.

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Simon Akeroyd, VP, Corporate Strategy & Business Development, Amadeus Asia Pacific has penned this piece for aspiring travel startup entrepreneurs.

There’s no doubting that the world of business is changing. The traditional model of large international corporates functioning in a singular, closed-door fashion is fast disappearing, with companies now open to collaboration or outsourcing. While previously big corporates, protected by expensive barriers of entry, were responsible for all “business problems” in-house, technology has now made it possible for many of these issues to be outsourced.

And here lies the opportunity for the B2B entrepreneur. The last few years have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of startups globally, not least Asia where there are over 47,000 startup companies listed on angel.co. Often seen as polar opposites with differing goals and priorities, many large corporates and disruptive startups are now finding they can benefit one another. Startups are capitalising on the fact that big businesses need them, they are working to tackle business problems outside the larger company’s domain, with the outside chance of finding themselves targets for acquisition by the very companies they are trouble shooting for.

In fact, even if a trade exit doesn’t materialise, there are still plenty of compelling reasons for startups to partner with corporates. For one, working alongside a trusted corporation provides startups with credibility in an often-crowded marketplace. With an established corporation as a partner or key customer, the startup is well-placed to be taken seriously by their peers. Secondly, by working alongside larger, more established companies, startups can piggyback off robust marketing and PR strategies that may save them from falling foul of any crises that can often plague new companies. Finally, the scale of a large organisation provides a startup with strong distribution channels, significantly improving the situation of the startup, whilst also reducing the overall risk.

Simon in a tuk tuk in Sri Lanka Image Credits: Amadeus Blog

So how should you go about founding a successful startup?

Three steps to startup success:

1. Identify the problem you want to solve.

For large travel companies (including Amadeus), there’s always a long list of problems or challenges, of varying levels of priorities, which we’d love to focus on. However, more often than not, there isn’t the time or the resources to look at them all. Most companies have limited capacity to implement every change and advancement that they want to; there are always projects that get pushed down the to-do list. It’s those non-urgent tasks that could be the real sweet spot for a startup, a great advantage for the budding entrepreneur. Rather than the stress of worrying about sales figures (which should generally be consistent), or spending time marketing to attract new customers, the startup can instead focus on serving that one customer with that one product.

2. Do your research.

Familiarize yourself with the industry, assess the work of competitors and keep an eye on what technologies and innovations are coming next. Take a hotel, for example. Maybe they want to cut their laundry bill or determine how rooms can be cleaned in a more efficient way to offer early check-ins, accommodate late check-outs, offer an amazing guest experience and drive loyalty. It could even be how to improve internal efficiencies or manage their supply chain better. If a startup can offer a solution to these types of problems, they become a valuable match for any corporation and far more likely to succeed.

3. Choose the right support.

With the number of accelerator programmes multiplying throughout the region, it can be difficult to determine which is the best fit for you and your partner. It is vital that you find the right experts to partner with in order to have the best chance of success. Not an accelerator or an incubator, Amadeus Next is a community, nimble and flexible, just like a startup itself, which leverages the technology and expertise of our experts to provide support to travel technology startups. We currently partner with more than 30 startups, and surprisingly over 70% of these companies have some form of B2B (business-to-business) component, with almost 55% being purely B2B.

Why B2B?

Founding a B2C startup is undoubtedly an attractive idea. Many entrepreneurs dream of creating a company with mass appeal. The next Airbnb, Line or Grab perhaps. However, these ‘unicorn’ triumphs are rare (hence the name), and in my opinion, entrepreneurs would be wise to consider an alternative route on their quest for startup success. While it is true that some B2C startups bring great ideas, technology, and solutions to the travel industry, for many it can be very difficult to get off the ground, particularly for first-time entrepreneurs. From the get-go, B2C startups must be alert to many things, including having a strong marketing strategy in place that stands up against the big names already dominating the B2C travel industry. You have to compete for a potential travellers’ attention against the massive marketing budgets, years of brand exposure and known services of the likes of TripAdvisor, MakeMyTrip, Expedia or Ctrip, amongst others. Most well established travel brands have a solid funnel of customers and it’s hard to take those customers (and their loyalty) away.

The reality is that many B2C startups we see aren’t favourable to investors, many of whom prefer to fund B2B businesses in a bid to establish more stable earnings. It may sound glamorous to launch a B2C startup, but according to CB insights, in 2016 there were only 25 unicorn “births” globally, 68% less than in 2015[1].

So the next time I see an exciting Asian startup trying to make it in travel, this would be my advice; don’t get fixated on becoming an industry disruptor in the consumer sphere, instead explore how your technology can help solve an important issue in a B2B company. While it may not be their current priority, or one which their R&D team is focusing on, by helping to solve that problem, you could make a huge difference to a company’s business, and hopefully the chance of success for your startup.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/31/cb-insights-3358-tech-exits-in-2016-unicorn-births-down-68/

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Whether we’re travelling to a new city for work or for fun, we all want to find the most interesting neighbourhood, most loved restaurant, or that cool new bar. The thing is, we don’t always have a local friend to show us around, or the time to surf the web to distinguish the tourist traps from the real thing.

Enter AVUXI, the young startup aiming to rank the popularity of every place on earth so you can figure out the best places to visit as you’re booking your hotel and flight. This London and Barcelona-based company is the latest startup to benefit from an Amadeus Ventures investment.

“Whenever we talk about travelling, location is essential. What we tried to do with Amadeus is to help people save time and have a better and more personalised experience by having the bookings and the information on the same site,” says Alexis Batlle, CEO of AVUXI.

So how does it work? AVUXI’s TopPlace™ technology shows the most popular areas within a city through easy to understand heat map overlays, so travellers searching for a hotel on an online travel agency or metasearch site can intiutively understand the most popular places in the city they are about to visit.

In addition, AVUXI’s ranking scores assign location ranking to each hotel and vacation rental, and travellers can even search for popular places by category, such as eating, shopping, nightlife and sightseeing; so foodies can look for hotels near a city’s top areas for restaurants, and fashionistas in the shopping district.

To deliver all this data to travellers, AVUXI’s platform analyses and ranks geolocated data, including comments, photos and reviews from millions of users through more than 60 sources, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Wikipedia and more.

For travellers with little time on their hands, having access to all of this user-generated data from locals all over the world, means they can book their hotel with confidence. And much to the old adage that location is everything, travellers will pay for the convenience: an AVUXI study found that more than 90% of travellers are willing to pay more to stay at a more interesting and suitable location.

For online travel agencies, metasearch sites, and hotels, AVUXI’s platform has the power to transform those just browsing into those willing to book a night’s stay, resulting in improved conversion, increased revenues and happy, loyal customers.

“Finding ways to improve conversion for our customers is a key focus as a company. By building a culture of collaboration with developers, start-ups, partners and our own staff, we are unlocking new innovations that can deliver real value to our customers and travellers. That’s why we are excited to invite AVUXI into the Amadeus Ventures portfolio,” says Katherine Grass, head of Amadeus Innovation & Ventures.

Amadeus Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Amadeus IT group, is a travel venture fund which invests in start-ups sitting at the crossroads of travel and technology. Amadeus launched this fund in 2014 and AVUXI is the latest addition to a portfolio that also includes start-ups such as Fly, Bluesmart, BookingPal, Yapta and Olset.

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In its whitepaper called Blockchain: harnessing its potential in travel, Amadeus has highlighted key areas in travel industry which could have a significant impact in the near future.

Amadeus says the blockchain – one of six areas the company has identified as potential disruptors of travel – has tremendous promise to change the way we can ‘exchange value’ digitally.

More details are highlighted in the video given below:

Some of these highlighted areas are secure passenger identification, improved baggage tracking, more user-friendly loyalty schemes, and simplified payments between travel agencies and airlines.

In addition to Blockchain, other themes include extended content, improved conversion, messaging platforms, operations & performance, and disruptive forces. In order to accelerate development on these themes, Amadeus is also launching a new Innovation Partnership Programme, which will assist early stage companies which are working on these themes in order to nurture their ideas and provide faster go to market support.

Blockchain is a decentralized encrypted database shared across a network of stakeholders where digital transactions can be stored and organized in a transparent, verifable and secure way. The information added to blockchain has to be validated by consensus, accepted by all parties there by reducing errors as there’s no single point of control. Blocks added to blockchain can never be removed or modified.

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Nobody likes fluctuating flight fares. You check the fares, wait for a while to discuss the travel plan with your friends and find higher fares by the time you decide to book. FLYR offers a solution in the form of FareKeep. It allows users to lock the ticket price while searching and buy more time before confirming the booking. Amadeus has announced another investment in FLYR and has been working with the startup since its first investment in April 2016.

FLYR’s FareKeep allows travellers to do just that. While searching for fares through an Online Travel Agency (OTA), metasearch site or airline website, FareKeep gives travellers the option to hold a specific fare and protect it from increases for a small fee. With machine learning and algorithms inspired by the financial services industry, FLYR helps OTAs, metasearch and airline sites to dynamically price the fee for holding a fare based on how likely it is that a price may change.

Logitravel is one of the early adopters of FLYR’s technology and has already implemented the FareKeep solution in its platform in Spain and Portugal.

“Our goal is to bring value to our customers by offering them the services that fulfil their needs and make for a better user experience, which helps us build customer loyalty. With FareKeep, we are able to offer more flexibility to travellers and engage with them in new and different ways during the fare lock to bring more value to them and boost the chances of conversion”, says Tomeu Bennasar, CEO, Logitravel.

FLYR has found that out of 100 fare locks, up to 30% are converted into a booking, representing a significant opportunity for travel sellers and airlines to increase revenues as well as reduce the cost of finding new customers.

“Simple and consumer-focused shopping experiences are borne from innovative breakthroughs like FareKeep. As an online traveller, being able to lock a given fare reduces uncertainty and buys travellers time to think. For airlines, this ultimately translates into a higher probability of the consumer purchasing the flight with that specific airline, at no extra cost. FareKeep reduces the overall cost of customer acquisition and is a great addition to our offer,” says Gianni Pisanello, Strategic Marketing Director, Airline Distribution Marketing.

At the same time, once a traveller has protected a ticket price, the travel seller can open a qualified and ongoing relationship with that traveller, making it more likely that the traveller will go on to complete his or her booking. This, in turn, increases sales generation potential for the airline whose fare has been held by the traveller, without any impact on their inventory.

The first Amadeus investment in FLYR was in April 2016. Since then, Amadeus has worked with FLYR to develop an even better service to customers than before, while supporting FLYR’s growth. With Amadeus’ partnership, FLYR will also be able to work on new product developments.

“This new investment further validates our strong partnership with Amadeus. We are excited to support different customers’ innovation strategies and growth with FareKeep, our fare protection solution, and to benefit from Amadeus’ scale and reach to further increase uptake of our products by airlines, OTAs and metasearch sites.” says Jean Tripier, CEO, FLYR.

FLYR is already working on two new products. The first is a credit check free split payment solution which could allow travel sellers or providers to offer travellers the option to pay for an airline ticket or hotel room in several instalments. The second is a post-booking price guarantee which promises to refund a traveller if the airfare drops after they have completed a booking.

Some travel booking companies are exploring the option of giving travellers more control over fares they choose. However, most of them either charge flat costs or ask for a specific percentage of ticket cost and dampen the costs incurred over a large pool. FLYR takes a better approach by accounting for multiple variables to calculate the fee rather than adding a flat fee. This makes the fee more suitable for the particular route and travel date combination. This makes it more likely for the travellers to use the FareKeep feature, in turn driving more bookings for OTAs or airlines.

More details about FLYR can be found at flyrlabs.com.

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The travel industry is evolving at a pace faster than any of us can keep up with. New business models emerge in space left by the incumbents and push them back on their toes. To further catalyse the transition, development in mobile technologies is driving changes in user behaviour. This is not only creating room for adoption of new technologies but also for the evolution of models currently followed by online travel businesses. The best way to be a part of the future is to anticipate the scenarios and prepare for when they arrive.

Along the sidelines of recently concluded Phocuswright India 2017, Amadeus hosted a discussion on how travel industry will evolve in future. During the discussion, Albert Pozo, President, Amadeus Asia Pacific shared what developments will play a major role in the redefining the experience of travellers and what will be the driving factors behind them while Sebastien Gibergues, Head of Leisure and Online Travel, Amadeus shed light on how the business models of online travel companies could evolve as an increasing number of travellers move online. They also used the opportunity to release a whitepaper titled ‘Online Travel 2020: Evolve, Expand or Expire’ which includes data from their internal researches on the potential scenarios that can emerge in online travel space. According to them, travel is a fast moving space and even a major player like Amadeus has to always keep experimenting and innovating to stay competitive. Here are some highlights from the discussion:

Albert Pozo, President, Amadeus Asia Pacific

Megatrends that will define travel

-IoT

Albert pointed out that right now, less than one percent of the devices that have the potential to generate useful user data are actually connected and serving the function. The data, if utilised properly can work wonders to ease travellers’ pain points. Connected devices will continue to gain importance throughout the entire journey and will help in better understanding the behaviour of travellers. This will go towards improving the service and increasing the degree of personalisation for individual travellers.

-Smart Cities

As IoT catches on, we will see the emergence of well-connected smart cities. Various establishments like Airports currently lack the real-time data to deliver their best. Most of the airports don’t have accurate information on the amount of traffic until airlines share the numbers. As they start leveraging user data, they will not only be able to improve logistics but also get more travellers to shop at airports with well-timed prompts and information. And yes, no more getting lost at airports.

-Chat bots

The love for chat apps is stronger in Asia Pacific than anywhere else in the world. The success of WhatsApp, WeChat and even some regionally popular platforms like Path and Line is a clear indicator of the same. As travel brands try to cater to the customers in their comfort zone, they will increase focus on chatbots. Expect to see more brands experimenting with them in future.

-AR/VR

Travel brands have already started using virtual reality to drive inspiration and as tech giants continue to bring down the cost of hardware required, VR will continue to gain momentum. Augmented Reality on the other hand would play an important role during the travel. From providing more information about tourist attractions to improved navigation, it can find important role in places. Over time, AR technologies will not just be limited to providing information but also to provide in-destination services.

-Sharing

While sharing/access economy is already playing a crucial role, not only during our trips but also in our everyday lives, the potential still hasn’t been fully explored. Moving beyond accommodation and transport, we will see an increase in sharing for services. It has already begun with some P2P startups working in the direction. Along with this, the shared accommodation space will get more attention from business travellers.

Sebastien Gibergues, Head of Leisure and Online Travel, Amadeus IT Group

The future of online travel businesses

-Mega Online Travel Retailers

Until recently, OTAs owned a large piece of the online booking space and metasearch companies were directing quality leads to them. However, the lines between OTAs and Metasearch platforms are blurring already. OTAs are looking at monetising their traffic with online advertising while metasearch platforms are moving to assisted booking. This convergence is giving rise to Mega Online Travel Retailers

-Digital Tour Operators

As travellers continue to shift online, a new form of model could emerge where traditional tour operators and OTAs join hands to become the ultimate travel seller. The rise of Digital Tour Operators could offer a mix of digital and human interaction offering convenience and speed. The conventional brick and mortar stores could evolve with technology and the agents will be better connected to assist during journey and cross sell at destinations.

-Mobile Travel Retailers

Instead of different platforms for different travel needs and mobile being a complementary distribution channel, we could see the evolution of mobile as the only distribution channel a travel needs. The mobile travel retailer would bring new ways of search and engagement leveraging developments like IoT, voice and VR while bringing the full booking flow into a single app.

-Travel Marketplace

Leading IT companies have been outlining the model of successful marketplaces and the same could happen in travel. Alibaba created e-commerce travel platform Alitrip (now Fliggy) and it already has 100 million users. Amazon has also been innovating in how people deal with marketplaces and we could see such platforms emerging in travel. A large platform developed by a major travel company for OTAs, airlines, hotels and other travel providers to sell on. The suppliers will have less access to user data but it could be balanced out in other ways.

The Amadeus research report “Online Travel 2020: Evolve, Expand or Expire” is available for free download here.

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Gone are the day when being able to make a booking online was good enough in the online travel space. Consumers these days are demanding and want faster results with smooth experience and even the slightest delay can cause a potential customer to leave the website and check another website in a new window. According to Amadeus’ data, every second reduced from search response time for consumers can translate into potential increase in coveted conversion rates for online travel businesses.

However speed alone won’t cut it. Relevance is just as important as users don’t just want to see the results but the right results. Realising the importance of an optimised experience, travel metasearch service KAYAK has implemented Amadeus Master Pricer with Instant Search technology. The new solution from Amadeus delivers search results in milliseconds without compromising on accuracy and will give KAYAK an edge.

“Our users expect both speed and accuracy from KAYAK – this is the killer combination,” said Giorgos Zacharia, chief technology officer, KAYAK.

“We are excited that our technology will help KAYAK continue to excel as leaders in online travel. Our solution delivers the right mix of instant and transactional search, delivering both a new, ’instant’ user experience as well as transactional results with the depth of content required to secure conversion,” said Sebastien Gibergues, head of Leisure, Online and Travel Media at Amadeus.

Amadeus Master Pricer with Instant Search uses advanced algorithms, smart cache refresh mechanisms and live availability check in order to deliver search results without compromising bookability or quality. The access to most comprehensive airline inventory also helps in offering recommendations for one way and round trip.

Scott Gutz, president and chief executive officer for Amadeus North America added, “As a long-standing customer, KAYAK has been using Amadeus technology for many years. Amadeus was a pioneer in low fare search solutions and we are pleased to now launch an ‘instant search’ offering, enabling our online travel customers like KAYAK to continue to serve and succeed.”

You can find more details about Amadeus Master Pricer with Instant Search in this blog post.

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