Amadeus moves to hotel stock

Amadeus is embarking on an aggressive strategy to consolidate fragmented hotel inventory by translating the back-office management systems used in the airline sector to the accommodation industry.

According to Phillippe Chereque, senior vice-president, corporate strategy the company will build a hotel platform that will aim to bring the same level of sophisticated yield management the airlines currently employ to hotels by connecting call centres and other back-door functions.

Chereque said Amadeus’ strategy is to realise 20% of its business from the IT sector, while retaining an 80% foothold in the GDS market.

The Amadeus Hotel Distribution Platform, which will be introduced at the end of 2007, “will use the same architecture we have used for the airlines,” Chereque told delegates at the European PhoCusWright conference in Brussels.

“Some 85% of hotels in Europe are independent,” Chereque pointed out to highlight the need for the platform Amadeus is proposing.

Hoteliers present at the conference were sceptical about whether Amadeus could pull off its plan.

“Amadeus’ offices smell like jet fuel, they don’t smell like room freshener,” observed one critic of the plan.

Another leading hotelier told Travolution the only way Amadeus would be likely to succeed is if it acquired a company that already specialises in this field. Amadeus has already purchased Optimus, a move observers say Amadeus made more for the people than the company itself.

If Amadeus is serious about doing for hotels what it has done for airlines, observers say, a logical acquisition would be office systems company Fidalio.

Comments

Related Articles

• Amadeus to provide e-ticket services to 200 airlines