Amadeus UK Continues to Show Strong Growth

London – October 20, 2003 – Amadeus, a leading global distribution system (GDS) and technology provider to the travel industry, has increased it’s market share to 21% in the UK and continues to have the strongest growth of all the GDSs in this market. Contributing to Amadeus’ growth has been the signing of around 50 new clients during the first 9 months of this year including NST Travel Group plc and Steamond Travel.

NST Travel Group plc, Europe’s leading educational tour operator has migrated to Amadeus from Galileo. The company’s 3 offices in the UK and Ireland will be using ATB Ticketing and Amadeus Pro Tempo – a versatile reservation booking tool used by specialist and business agencies alike, offering a user-friendly interface to the Amadeus System from a PC-based environment.

Commenting on the company’s migration to Amadeus, Andy Greene, Group IT Director for NST, said “Amadeus’ ability to deploy a sales system that meets all of our needs made our decision to migrate to them easy. We are now able to automate many procedures that we previously had to carry out manually, which has helped us to immediately increase our productivity and spend more time focusing on the customer service aspects of our jobs.”

Steamond Travel, a South American travel specialist based in London, has also migrated to the Amadeus system from Galileo. Steamond Travel has installed Amadeus Vista, which is a unique browser-based solution that has been designed to make travel agencies more productive and profitable. Available in over 50 countries, Vista offers agents the most extensive level of functionality and tools of any front-office platform offered by a GDS today.

Commenting on the migration of both companies to Amadeus UK Peter Cacioppo, Director of Sales, said “With new industry challenges on the horizon, forward-thinking tour operators and agencies such as NST and Steamond can see that Amadeus is best positioned to meet their evolving business needs. With our track record of successful customer migration, it is clear that we are not asking anyone to take a ‘leap of faith.’ Considering our meteoric growth over the past 2 years, it is safe to say that no other GDS has as much experience as Amadeus when it comes to successfully migrating new business.”

Notes to the Editors:

Amadeus Global Travel Distribution (MAD: AMS)
Amadeus is the leading global distribution system (GDS) and technology provider, serving the marketing, sales and distribution needs of the world’s travel and tourism industries.

Its comprehensive GDS data processing centre serves 65,250 travel agency locations and more than 12,600 airline sales offices, which together total more than 290,700 points of sale located in over 200 markets worldwide.

Through the Amadeus GDS, travel agencies and airline offices are able to make bookings with 469 airlines, representing more than 95 per cent of the world’s scheduled airline seats. The system also provides access to 56,000 hotels, 48 car rental companies serving some 24,900 locations, and other provider groups including: ferry; rail; cruise; insurance and tour operators.

Amadeus is a leading application service provider (ASP) to the airline industry.

140 airlines use the Amadeus Sales System in their offices to provide passengers with superior and seamless service at optimal cost.

Amadeus’s new generation of Passenger Service Systems, which include all IT systems associated with inventory management and departure control, will be implemented by British Airways, Qantas and Finnair.

e-Travel, Amadeus’s e-commerce business unit, is global leader in online travel technology and corporate travel management solutions. It powers the Web pages of 887 travel agencies, 255 corporate sites, 18 hotel sites and 139 web sites serving 50 airlines.

Amadeus is headquartered in Madrid, Spain and quoted on the Madrid, Paris and Frankfurt stock exchanges. For the year ended 31 December 2002, the company reported revenues of EUR 1856m and net income of EUR 148.6m. The Amadeus data centre is in Erding (near Munich), Germany and its principal development offices are located in Sophia Antipolis (near Nice), France. The company has some 5,100 employees worldwide.

Amadeus UK
Rob Golledge
T: 0870 990 7851
F: 0870 990 9299
E: [email protected]
W: www.uk.amadeus.com
E-mail: [email protected]

Amadeus Press
Bridget Agnew / Anya Velzeboer
Financial Dynamics
T: 020 7269 7219/7174
F: 020 7831 8438
E: [email protected]