Amadeus Introduces New Hotel Marketplace

Amadeus introduced a new-generation hotel distribution marketplace that will provide travel agents and other distributors with more efficient access to GDS and non-GDS hotel content.

The new hotel sales platform is currently available in Europe, and its North American rollout is in the planning stages.

The marketplace can be accessed via Amadeus’ travel agency retail platform, the Amadeus Selling Platform; Amadeus e-Travel Management, its corporate online booking tool, and by any third party through our web services.

The multi-source marketplace integrates content from all hotel sources into one format within the platform, so bookers can access their favorite providers through a single interface.

Standardized search results
Search results appear in a standardized format for quicker comparison shopping. Sophisticated search algorithms, caching technology and progressive display features deliver sub-second response times.

Amadeus said the “unique market differentiator” is active PNR integration. “No one else offers this,” a spokeswoman told Travel Market Report via email. “The closest version is a ‘light’ or passive PNR integration offered by GDS-type competitors.”

She said bookers can provide end-to-end customer services and manage their back-office functions much more efficiently. For example, bookers can compile customer itineraries knowing that any cancellations or amendments will be reflected in the itinerary automatically.

The marketplace will be adaptable to reflect customers’ different business models: Content can be managed in real time at different points of sale to reflect a commission-based model, a service charge, a net-rate/markup model or negotiated rates, depending on the booker.

Hotel options
Amadeus Hotels includes more than 690,000 hotel shopping options covering more than 235,000 unique properties.

In addition to nearly 300 hotel chains, representation companies and thousands of independent properties, it has agreements with regional and global hotel providers such as Albatravel, Bedsonline, Despegar.com, Destinations of the World, GTA, hotel.de, HRS, and Transhotel.

New partners in the pipeline include Sunhotels, Teldar, Travelboutique, and Travelguru.”

Agency pilot program
Amadeus Hotels has been in pilot testing with travel agencies for two months. Among the testers was Barry Higgott, operations manager of Horncastle Executive Travel in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.

He said the single interface cuts search, compare and book time “drastically.”

Massimo Callegari, air and sea director at Costa Crociere, said the new marketplace simplifies not only the search, book and payment process but also Costa’s mid- and back-office operations and hotel contract management..

Differentiators
Amadeus said other main areas of differentiation from other hotel products are:

1)    Comparison shopping capabilities, which aggregator-direct channels do not have.

2)    Support of different business models for bookers; while most GDS-type players only offer one business model option.

3)    Depth of integrated content, meaning that all the information aggregated from multiple sources is presented in one consistent format. This allows bookers to compare like-for-like information on a single platform and book within that same platform.

Amadeus said other players aggregate content, but it’s not presented on one platform in one format, so bookers still end up doing a lot of manual comparison and hopping from site to site.

Stepchild no longer
Hotel distribution, once the redheaded stepchild of the GDS industry, has become increasingly important in recent years.

Travelport’s Rooms and More, which made its debut in the summer of 2011, is a key component of the company’s “Beyond Air” strategy, which aims to increase revenue through new ventures outside core air distribution.