A new travel agency IT consultancy arm will be established by GDS Amadeus in the UK by the end of the second quarter this year tasked with providing a more collaborative service to the trade.
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New Amadeus consultative team to debut this summer
A new travel agency IT consultancy arm will be established by GDS Amadeus in the UK by the end of the second quarter this year tasked with providing a more collaborative service to the trade.
The division will be known as Amadeus IT Consultancy and Solutions (AITCS) and two full time consultant engineers will be brought in from the firm’s Nice base to head it up.
New Amadeus UK managing director Diane Bouzebiba said they will transfer their knowledge and approach to an existing team of 23 based in Crawley in the UK.
“This first year will be where we see where we can really add value,” she said. “I want my staff to share what they know.
“It’s time now to understand what all this technology is doing and optimise it.
“I recently had a discussion with a Scottish travel agent and he said to me I want one of your guys to come in and map what I have got, tell me what I need and plug it in.”
Bouzebiba said although she believes Amadeus can provide for all agency IT requirements, her team has in-depth knowledge of third party providers to make recommendations to customers.
“We have relationships with third party suppliers and our guys know what fits and how to plug it together,” she added.
A new regional approach could also see Amadeus look to tweak existing products or create new ones specifically to plug gaps in customers’ technology.
“One of the themes we are looking at developing is that we have guys working at Amadeus who are talented across many areas and they see a lot of different business practices.
“Sometimes we have requests from customers that are outside the box in terms of technology, so it’s about us focusing on business enablement.”
Bouzebiba said it was Amadeus’s job to make sure travel agents remain relevant by providing the sort of technology that allows them to compete with direct channels and to understand their customers.
