Amadeus says it new Big Data business intelligence service gives agents an affordable entry-level way of competing with the sector’s big global players.
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Data insight platform brings world of Big Data to agencies for first time, says Amadeus
Amadeus says it new Big Data business intelligence service gives agents an affordable entry-level way of competing with the sector’s big global players.
The GDS and technology provider expects its Amadeus Agency Insight suite of tools to be primarily of interest to leisure travel agents.
It was launched this week, a product of Amadeus’s Travel Intelligence unit, with two modules, one offering search data insight and the other focusing on booking data.
Additional modules will be added in coming months covering other segments of the customer journey post-booking.
Pascal Clement, head of travel intelligence at Amadeus, said agents have quite basic requirements and clients already using the product have been excited about what it can do.
“When you are the size of Expedia you can have a good sense of what’s going on in the market, but if you are not that size it’s very complicated.
“We believe this is affordable and we have gone for a price that makes sense for agents in terms of revenue. We are at the beginning but we see people are interested.”
Agents pay per module and also per market, Amadeus’s global reach meaning it can provide intelligence on any country globally.
The scale of the data the GDS has means it estimates it covers an average of 25% of search activity in travel – 200 million per week – and much more in certain markets.
Clement said: “What we are doing here is looking at the big picture – what is the need of our customers from a business intelligence perspective.
“We have started to create an overall platform to cover the full travel spectrum.”
Amadeus will provide agents with a core product but also offer a more bespoke service to adapt the technology for specific needs.
Clement said the module would all evolve over time and any improvements considered important for all customers would be rolled out to the full user base.
He said the intention is to be able to deliver new modules and functionality rapidly, and develop those through feedback from users to make the product increasingly sophisticated.
“The first two modules are already covering a lot of needs,” Clement said. “What we bring is the ability to understand what people are searching for in near real time.
“This allows the agent to start being much more focused on the marketing and addressing certain customer needs in a way that today is mostly based in intuition.
“Here we provide real data about what’s happening in each market.”
Agents who use the product can log into a portal which shows graphically them the information they are interested in.
Agents do not have to be Amadeus GDS customers to use the platform.
“Agents can start comparing their own search data with the overall market and see where they stand compared to the market,” said Clement.
“It will make sure you are putting marketing in the right place, which is one of the big concerns, and look at what’s happening in the second module which is booking.
“You can see how much you book compared to competitors and start looking at the ratio from search to booking to see whether that transformation is very low or not.”
Clement added: “Our interest is in making sure our travel agent customers are doing a better job. The more we can provide them with solution the more profitable they will be.
“We will then have more bookings thorough them and will ensure the loyalty of their business.
“Today travel agents, in general, have quite basic needs. It’s surprising to see how blind they are in many ways.
“We are bringing to people capabilities that they have never really had before. It should be a big plus for the industry. People are very excited about what this platform can provide.”
