22 July 2010

Premier Inn signs with GDS giant

Amadeus has signed a deal with Premier Inn to allow 580 of the chain’s properties to be booked through the global distribution system.

The deal will enable Premier Inn to continue to expand its distribution beyond the UK and Irish domestic markets, and focus on key markets including France, Spain, Italy and Germany.

The agreement will also help Premier Inn to attract more business travellers to their properties, as rooms for the chain will now be accessible through over 103,000 points of sale worldwide.

The distribution deal has added over 42,000 rooms within the UK and Ireland to Amadeus.

Amadeus head of distribution Hugo Ehrnreich said: "Having Premier Inn content is great news for us as it further increases our UK and Ireland market coverage and gives Amadeus a well-balanced portfolio of hotel content across all price ranges.

"This is an important part of Amadeus’ commitment to providing relevant content, as recent feedback from our travel agency partners shows that demand for budget hotels is soaring.

"We’re also pleased to say that we were Premier Inn’s first global distribution choice, and we look forward to building on this successful partnership."

The implementation of Premier’s 580 properties on Amadeus begins mid-July and work will proceed in phases, with airport and major city hotels added first. The implementation will be complete by mid-August this year, when all Premier Inn content will be fully bookable.

By Linsey McNeill