Amadeus is now taking orders for its new browser-based product, Vista, due to ship this June, which will give agents access to the Amadeus global distribution system, e-mail and the Internet on the same screen.
According to UK managing director Graham Nichols, Vista is a major improvement over its existing product Pro Tempo. “Vista will mean a huge saving in training time as agency staff will be able to check availability, grab seats and make bookings without having to learn cryptic codes any more – the product is very point and click. A chain of 20 shops could have a branded front screen with three or four icons on it for e-mail, the Internet and GDS bookings,” he said.
The product will be inexpensive according to Nichols: “There will be a token licence fee for each user of the system, however, we typically don’t charge for installation and network connections as long as an agency makes enough bookings with us.”
Amadeus has also just launched a product for large multinational companies to manage their business travel expenses. Travel Manager was jointly developed with German software giant SAP.
Travel Manager links the Amadeus GDS with the SAP accounting system, run by many of the top global companies. When a flight is booked on Amadeus, an expenses report is generated in the SAP system and the price is logged in the SAP accounts ledger. It cuts out manual data entry.
Amadeus is running training courses for business travel agents to learn how to use Travel Manager.