Amadeus has made the transition to become the only Australian GDS that is “truly mobile.”
Launched yesterday, the new Amadeus Selling Platform Connect, or Amadeus Connect for short, represents the industry’s first fully online professional travel agency platform.
“We are unbelievably excited with Amadeus Connect,” Amadeus Pacific’s managing director Tony Carter said.
“We are at the front edge of trends in where the customer is going. Agents can now connect anywhere, anytime.”
Touted as the first “truly mobile” system, Amadeus has moved away from the current system that requires installing, and onto a platform that can be accessed from multiple devices simply by logging into the database using the internet.
“This is a huge advantage for both agents and customers,” product manager Damian Hannam said.
“Not having to say, ‘I’ll have a look when I get home’ is a real benefit of using Amadeus Connect.”
The key changes from the older platform include new search features to assist in finding information faster, with a more intuitive workspace, and a mix and match command and graphical workspace centred around an agent’s preferred workflow.
In addition, Amadeus has given agents the ability to view multiple bookings concurrently, something that is revolutionary in the GDS arena.
“You can now look at up to 12 sectors at a time on one page,” Hannam explained. “This will essentially speed up the process, as the old style only allowed you to view one booking at a time.”
Minimal training is required for the intuitive new system, which doesn’t require you to know airport and airline codes in order to book instantaneously, with automatic version updates included to reduce downtime as well.
The familiar command page also ensures a seamless move to the next generation platform, while air, hotels, cars and profiles all interact together.
The system also provides agents with “rich content” with smarter search, interactive maps, a wide range of hotels, virtual credit card payment and optional integration with preferred content partners.
But the real winner is the way Amadeus Connect actually allows agents to better engage and personalise the service they give their clients.
“It’s no longer a case of the travel agent sits on one side of the desk, and the customer on the other,” Carter said. “Agents share the experience with the customer, and want to show them something sexy, draw them into the process.”
And it was this particular element that brought TravelManagers to the party, stepping in as the first agency to trial Amadeus Connect and act as “lead customers in market deployment.”
“Late last year we made the decision to bite the bullet and move over to Amadeus,” TravelManagers Australia’s executive GM Michael Gazal said.
“We have over 460 agents, soon to be 500 with our expansions, all around Australia, and by moving over to Amadeus, we have achieved true mobility.”
Gazal added that most personal TravelManagers are “non-Amadeus users”, but that Amadeus Connect makes the transition easier, especially by incorporating both command and graphical workspaces.
“TravelManagers provide true personal service,” he added. “They come to the client, and now have the opportunity to bring their iPad or laptop, and sit down in real time and look at bookings with a customer straight away.”
“This is a big opportunity for TravelManagers to have that.”
Gazal also made reference to the fact that travel agents are “the masters of juggling”, and that the ability to work when away from the computer, or have multiple screens live at once, was a huge advantage that drew the agency to Amadeus.
“Mobility is everything,” Gazal said. “And while it’s too early to tell if it has made an impact on agent’s income, we expect it to drive sales.”
“Agents typically avoid booking features like cars and hotels because they’re too hard. Now that they’re easier to book, it will be more commissionable for agents.”
