Golden Tulip opts for Amadeus Multiproperty solution and hosting via the Amadeus data center
Riko van Santen, Vice President, Electronic Distribution & ICT (ICT: Information and Communications Technology) for Golden Tulip Hospitality Group, about the hosted version of Amadeus PMS, the importance of IT systems compatibility and a long-standing partnership with Amadeus.
Vaterstetten, 4 December 2007: Golden Tulip has been working with Amadeus as GDS provider for decades. In addition Golden Tulip has now opted for Amadeus PMS as Multiproperty version. Riko van Santen explains, “Imagine going on holiday, and finding that the cash machines didn’t accept standard sized credit cards. You’d be pretty annoyed wouldn’t you? This is the state of hospitality IT at present: There is no standardisation, no interconnectivity and compatibility. We are working with Amadeus because they want that to change the hospitality world as much as we do.
Besides proven expertise and excellent support what speaks most for Amadeus as technology partner according to Riko van Santen is that “they have the resources and determination to drive the industry forward. They listened to us when we came to them with suggestions. We wanted full inter-compatibility with our other systems; we wanted best available rate and dynamic pricing functionality added to our PMS systems. Other technology companies would have asked for more money to develop it. Amadeus saw that, by developing the enhancements their customer wanted, they strengthened their product portfolio.”
Hosting via the Amadeus data center optimises resources
It is this cooperation between the companies developing IT and hoteliers which Riko sees as the key to delivering his vision of a fully standardised and automated hospitality industry. “We need to take all of the manual links, all of the databases that have to be personally updated, out of the system. We need single-image inventories, which can be marketed to the last room and which can communicate any alterations to pricing or availability across the world instantly. This year, we are piloting solutions with Amadeus which will achieve just that. We are hosting our PMS and Point of Sale (POS) solutions at Amadeus’ data centre in Erding (Munich), with all of our systems linked to it over secure networks.”
Riko believes that the advantages of this hosted approach will be considerable. "For Golden Tulip, it means significant efficiency savings. We will minimise IT infrastructure and maintenance, we will no longer need IT staff at each hotel. Our ten-strong technology staff at corporate headquarters will be enough to manage our global operations, particularly as we have Amadeus operating as an extension of our IT team. With this hosting option we expect to see overall savings of at least 5-10%."
