30 January 2009

Amadeus to speed up non-air services

A new survey commissioned by Amadeus will prompt the technology provider to speed up products to market which can help with non-air bookings.

The survey asked travel agents which non-air products were the most requested. Leisure agents required hotels, cruise then airport transfers while TMCs said hotel, rail then car rental bookings were asked for the most.

Respondents said the success of non-air sales was mainly driven by the level of commissions offered by the service providers which helped as additional revenue providers in these straitened times. They also said they believed technology could make non-air even easier to sell, asking for more automated prompts, more integrated technology and more product training and sales skill training.

Amadeus UK and Ireland director of marketing Una Bennett said the survey had spurred the company on to roll out its latest booking platforms as soon as possible.

She explained: "With agents reporting a decrease in bookings during 2008 we want to do as much as we can to help them sell non-air services, and in the process help them make as much extra money on the commission earned as possible.

"This means not only working to deploy our latest booking platforms into the market as quickly as we can, but also looking at rolling out more bespoke product knowledge and sales training sessions so agents can provide accurate advice to their customers to close that sale.

"In line with this we have in the last few months provided access to online virtual classroom training courses to help agents boost their skills and knowledge, at their own pace and in their own time."

She added: "New features introduced for our business travel customers in the last 12 months include the ability to adapt Amadeus Quality Control to prompt for ancillary service bookings. For the leisure sector, we have also deployed Activities and Entertainment, to automate the sale of added value travel products and services - both quick and easy ways for companies to boost ancillary sales and earn that all important additional revenue."

by Dinah Hatch