News :: European R&D leader in travel and tourism calls hoteliers to embrace innovation with them

Amadeus has yet again ranked as the European Research & Development (R&D) leader in the travel and tourism industry, according to the 2012 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard – an annual European Commission report that ranks the largest 1,000 European companies by total investment in R&D. 

This award recognises Amadeus’ commitment to R&D and emphasis on innovation, which is one of the drivers behind Amadeus’ progress and growth. With a team of over 4,500 people split across sixteen centres around the world (Nice, London, Sydney, Antwerp, Aachen, Frankfurt, Munich, Boston, Miami, Toronto, Strasbourg, Tucson, Bangalore, Bogota, Warsaw and Bangkok), the desire for innovation spreads throughout all sectors in Amadeus.

Amadeus invested €347.5 million during 2011, an increase of 6.7% on 2010, to research and develop technologies for use in the travel sector. This investment represented 12.7% of revenues and helped the company maintain it number one position in Europe by total R&D investment in the area of travel and tourism.

Hervé Couturier, Executive Vice President, R&D, Amadeus IT Group, said: “Naturally we are very pleased to see that our investment in R&D has been highlighted again by this important European Commission study. Equally we are very proud to be ranked again as a leader in the travel and tourism area. This further emphasises our reputation for innovation”.

Innovation in hotels

In recent years, Amadeus’ R&D efforts have particularly focused on the hospitality industry.

In 2010, Amadeus launched the Amadeus Hotel Platform, an integrated and centralised hotel IT solution for hotel chains that is set to transform the way hotels do business. Available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, it combines central reservation system, above-property management solution, call centre, distribution to any channel, e-commerce, m-commerce and business intelligence into one fully integrated platform.

This platform is designed to support hotels in the current era of globalisation and expansion, enabling them to respond to changing traveller demands. Amadeus Hotel Platform is not only a unique solution in the industry but is also an excellent example of a platform conceived from an Open Systems approach and developed with the proliferation of cloud computing in mind.

Innovation in the cloud

In January this year, Amadeus Hotels published Clearing the Cloud; Best of Open Systems and Cloud for hotel business optimisation, a report that makes the case for hoteliers to embrace the Open Source Software revolution in order to benefit from greater innovation.

Whether the hotelier is battling with unwieldy legacy systems, trying to reduce costs across IT systems or looking for that something extra to gain competitive advantage, the report examines the suitability of Open Source Software. The report also outlines the specific benefits to be gained from switching to Open Source software which include: innovation, cost-efficiency, security, scalability and responsiveness.

The future

Amadeus has not only pioneered the use of open systems within Amadeus Hotel Platform but also within Amadeus’ own business making them a clear example of the benefits from innovation. 

Hervé Couturier said, “Nonetheless, our desire for innovation has not yet been satisfied and R&D will continue to inspire our evolution as a large-scale technology pioneer in 2013 and beyond”.