Hays Travel Selects Amadeus
London – November 24, 2006: Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, today announced that leading leisure travel agent Hays Travel has selected Amadeus as its sole distribution partner in the UK.
This latest signing brings Amadeus’ market share in the UK to 25 per cent and continues to build upon the company’s position as the leading distribution system for the UK leisure sector.
Hays Travel has installed both the Amadeus Selling Platform and Amadeus Cruise across its UK network. Reflecting the growing popularity of the cruise market in the UK, this includes obtaining 700 licences for Amadeus Cruise to enable Hays Travel consultants to more effectively sell cruise holidays. The network includes retail branches, call centres, home workers and approximately 125 Independence Group members.
Stephane Durand, Managing Director of Amadeus UK & Ireland, said: “Hays Travel has an extensive network of retail branches, home workers and call centres, all of which have slightly different requirements from their distribution partner. Amadeus has invested a great deal of time and money developing its leisure solution to ensure that it is able to meet the needs of the entire industry. We are extremely pleased that we have been able to partner with Hays Travel to provide them with a solution that works for their entire network.”
Ensuring that Amadeus’ technology solutions continue to lead the way in the industry, the company invested €182.19 million in R&D in 2005. This investment enables Amadeus to continue to work in partnership with its travel agency partners to develop solutions that help agencies save both time and money while still adding to the customer service experience that each agent is able to pass on to their clients.
John Hays, Managing Director of Hays Travel added: “With all the different working environments that make up our network, we needed a technology partner that was flexible and really worked alongside us to create a solution tailored to our needs. Hays Travel has always prided itself on embracing the right technology to support our business strategy and Amadeus delivered both the product and service to make the recent migration process seamless. Initial feedback from our team has been extremely positive.”
Key reasons that helped Hays Travel to select Amadeus as its technology partner include:
- Support through the migration process – Amadeus was able to provide the expertise and experience to seamlessly transition Hays Travel to its technology solutions quickly and painlessly from the planning, through to the ‘live’ date and beyond.
- Ongoing support for both frontline and management employees - Amadeus could provide strong post sales account managemetn and ongoing help desk assistance across all strata of Hays Travel's business.
- Provision of traning - Amadeus was able to offer a wide range of media and range of courses, including Amadeus Learning City, and state-of-the-art interactive online training for all levels of expertise and businesses, to reduce costs associated with staff training and increase travel consultant skills and satisfaction levels etc.
- Integration of third party provider content - Amadeus' ability to work with, and integrate, other leading third-party provider content and solutions was instrumental in Hays Travel's decision to select the company as its technology partner.
- Simplified sales processes - The Amadeus Selling Platform for hotel, car rental and rail travel is already helping Hays Travel improve its agents ability to cross-sell and boost profitability.
- Ability to provide an easy-to-use cruise solution - Amadeus Cruise is known within the industry as the leading cruise solution in the market and offers Hays Travel's consultants a fully graphical solution that enables agents to view multi-cruise line sailing availability on the same screen as well as cabin availability and a host of other
features that make selling cruise packages simple and quick.
