Kamilla's Managing Information and Knowledge in Tourism: March 2013

Friday 8 March 2013

Amadeus 2

I have just found another article for Amadeus which talks about redesigning the mobile service recently. Because there are so many smartphones coming to the market and they are very popular Amadeus had to obviously consider that they have to keep up to date with their services so they improved and redesigned the app the have launched a few years ago.

The m-Power mobile travel app for Amadeus debuts a full redesign

In advance of official word from Amadeus, Tnooz has learned that the GDS’s customizable and brandable application for travel agencies — M-Power 2.0 — has been fully redesigned by Sound of Data.Travel agency customers of Amadeus can now sign up for the latest version, which debuts first as iOS only, and comes with new pricing terms. The first branded apps will be available in the App Store this month and will let agencies distribute the full range of GDS air content directly with no 3rd party content connection.

The app’s new features include:

TripIt-style interface for itinerary management
the new ability to manually add booked flights by simply entering a flight number and departure date
the ability to manually add booked hotel reservations
the addition of WorldMate-style weather forecasts for a destination for 7 days (up from 3 days previously)
an improved user interface for things like the menus and swiping motions to change between screens
autodetection of your country by using your device’s GPS (rather than scrolling for your country’s name in a list)
improved language options for 7 languages (English, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish)

The app already offered online check-in reminders via SMS notifications, flight status messages, and social media integration on top of a basic trip-management tool.

Travel agencies struggling to adapt to the rapid movement of customers to mobile solutions can now offer their own app that has full search, booking, mid-trip, and post-trip functionalities by iPhone or Android devices—and soon a version in HTML 5.

As we reported previously, Amadeus has already signed up travel agencies to use the mobile product, including BTS Travel Experts in Belgium. BTS Travel Experts had so much success with this application that in November it was awarded the Belgian travel industry innovation award 2012.

Amadeus is using a revenue-sharing model for m-Power, such as making mobile notifications a revenue generator. The app is designed with space for promotional messages that agencies can customize for upselling based on the demographic of the user.
Sound of Data says that future iterations in app design should come more quickly from here on out because the company has migrated m-Power to a stand-alone backend platform. It has slated to build capabilities for hotel, car and rail reservations; location-based content that will sell geo-location relevant tours and activities, restaurants, and transportation.

The company has also has also built its own tool for distributing branded iOS and Android apps.

Amadeus

Sell more, move faster & serve better!

Amadeus is one of the most important Global Distribution System and it is used all over the world. It has its headquarters in Madrid. It had been founded in 1987 by Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa and SAS. The reason for inventing Amadeus for Europe to get into the competition with the USA's brand, Sabre.

Today Amadeus is the largest GDS provider in the Tourism Industry and more than 400,000 travel professionals use it worldwide to sell travel. Amadeus Selling Platform gives faster, more intuitive access to a greater range of travel content: over 269 of the world's leading hotel chains, 30 car rental companies, 95% world airlines' scheduled seats, low fare flights ... etc.

Technology always has to move with the trends and consumer expectation. I've found an article which talks about Amadeus launching a mobile app for trip planning and management.

Amadeus launches mobile service, joins Sabre at the trip planning party

Amadeus has officially unveiled the mobile version of CheckMyTrip, a mobile trip planning and management service for travellers which also includes an iPhone and Facebook app.

CheckMyTrip has been in play since 2001 as a post-booking management tool for customers of Amadeus partners, but until now has only been web-based.

The new mobile version positions the system directly in front of consumers (and is being touted similarly in the marketing material today) as well as through the agent community, similar to the TripCase project from rival GDS firm Sabre.

The mobile version allows travellers with a booking to check up-to-the minute flight information, destination weather, city guides, and connection information from any mobile web browser. Most importantly is the trip planning element of the apps created by Amadeus. A Blackberry version is in development, Amadeus says, but an iPhone app has been in the iTunes Store for a few weeks.

The app creates schedules and aggregates bookings into a similar itinerary management tool as that provided by TripCase, although reaction so far on iTunes has been far from positive.

Interestingly, much of the ire from reviewers is focused on how CheckMyTrip has failed to replace the popular MyFlightsApp.

Amadeus told the creator of MyFlightsApp to close the service in November 2009 after it emerged the app was scraping Amadeus data when providing travel information to users.

At the time Amadeus said it never supported the launch of MyFlightsApp (it was only in the app store for four months) and that it was now developing a system of its own.

Thursday 7 March 2013

Global Distribution Systems

The GDSs is a computerized reservation system used worldwide for airline seats, hotel rooms, car renting and other items related to travel. The most popular systems are Amadeus and its competitor Galileo and there are more, such as Worldspan, Apollo, Abacus, Infini and Sabre.

You can book anything through GDS, they all use letter-codes to make it shorter and faster such as BA (British Airways), LHR (London Heathrow), D (Dinner) or L (Lunch) etc. It is used by travel agents.

GDS systems are very important part of the whole Travel and Tourism Industry. It was originally designed by airlines and it had been extended later for travel agencies also.
The first automated reservation system was made in 1946 by American Airlines and it was successful in its developed format. Several airlines started to use it. But actually booking the tickets were a bit different that time compare to now. The ticketing agents had to call the booking office up and make the reservation over the phone, they could not do it straight away themselves.
It is essential to know how the system works for those people who are working in a travel agency. If you are thinking about to work there, you have better consider to learn one of the popular ones.

I will write about some of the GDS systems in more detail also in my posts.