Amadeus Builds Up Its Corporate Business

Although Amadeus is neck and neck with Sabre in terms of worldwide market share – they trade the No. 1 position regularly – it is the smallest GDS operating in the U.S. In addition, its strategy in the U.S has been to target smaller agencies; it has not been a major player in the corporate market.

But in recent months, there has been a subtle shift – not in Amadeus’ strategy, but in the perception of the company among corporate agencies and their clients.

Readers of The Beat, a business travel newsletter, recently voted Amadeus the “most admired travel technology provider.” Some of that admiration may be due to the development of Amadeus One, the new booking platform for corporate travel agencies.

But Ian Wheeler, vice president of marketing and distribution, points out that Amadeus also has taken steps to bolster its presence in the U.S. “We created a second sales team in Chicago,” he said. “We are getting the right people to get the right relationships.” Amadeus One is “a good way to build up business relationships with new customers.”

He stressed that the recent moves are “not a change in strategy but an expanding from our existing base.”

Amadeus One addresses the issue of graphic user interface vs. green screen emulator with a technology called “Cryptic Magic.” It allows an agent to use cryptic commands – and Wheeler acknowledged that there are situations that call for their use – and see the search results in graphical format on the same page.

“When we first saw it, it was blindingly obvious” that this was a better way to go than flipping back and forth between cryptic and graphical displays, Wheeler said. “It’s a marriage between the two.”

The Amadeus Selling Platform continues to be the “premier” booking platform for U.S. agents, Wheeler said. And if agency managers want counselors to use cryptic commands routinely, they should continue to use it.