Amadeus is playing on its strengths in the cruise market and says cruise bookings this year are up nearly 400%.
The GDS is encouraging agents to take up Amadeus Cruise saying the product is both high margin and in increasing demand.
According to Amadeus bookings for the first quarter of 2004 are up 375% year-on-year. Although in that time cruise content has increased considerably.
Amadeus Cruise offers real-time access to cruise product and can be sold as a stand-alone version and used by any agent regardless of GDS affiliation. Among the cruise lines available to the UK market are Celebrity, Fred Olsen, Royal Caribbean and Costa.
Costa managing director, Paul Ellerby, says signing to Amadeus Cruise was a good move and has “significantly increased sales”. He said it helps that agents don’t need to use the phone to make cruise bookings.
Report by Ginny McGrath
