World Monitor Magazine WM_KIOGE 2018_Web | Page 24

EXPERT OPINION
A story of evolution: going from
a GDS to a live travel space
Analysts say that in the coming years the world will change significantly:
such innovations as Big Data, Blockchain, Crypto-Currency, Artificial
Intelligence and others will be common things in our everyday life.
The rate of change in the tourism industry is also continuing to grow.
Tatyana Akulova,
General Manager,
Amadeus Central Asia
and Caucasus
Today's travelers are high-tech consumers
looking for a unique experience. Their
capabilities and requirements are now
higher than ever - they demand a choice,
transparency in pricing, differentiation and
personalization.They always stay connected,
rely on social interaction when making
decisions related to travels and expect a
seamless user experience regardless the
devices they use throughout their journeys.
The pace of change in the tourism industry
is accelerating and challenging the current
business models, and the industry players
to keep pace with new expectations and
technological advances are evolving with
them too.
To date, Amadeus is a holding company
operating on five continents, 190 countries
in the world. The company was founded by
the European air carriers 30 years ago to
establish a joint booking system for the
aviation content. And until now, Amadeus
is associated mainly with the GDS (Global
Distribution System) functionality. At the
same time Amadeus has long been one of
the world leaders providing the IT solutions
for the entire tourism industry. Amadeus,
by understanding the significant changes
in the market which must be considered,
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has been developing intensively in almost
all segments the last few years. This
is primarily due to the so-called fourth
industrial revolution, when innovative
technologies changed entire sectors of the
economy at a tremendously rapid pace.
Our company responded to the demand of
time with a new strategy - the transition
from the GDS model to the open and
dynamic ecosystem of Live Travel Space
uniting all players with more content
available in a larger number of sale
channels while combining various business
models. Our company has invested more
than 5 billion Euros in R&D since 2004 and
continues to invest in the Amadeus Travel
Platform - a reliable platform built on open
systems, integrating new interfaces and
architectures. The platform compiles the
providers’ content transmitted in different
formats - whether it is a data obtaining
tool through various APIs or the services
using different programming languages or
ATPCO or NDC standards, bringing it to a
single format.
The travel sellers will be able to access a
wider range of content and to use