Amadeus reports its revenue grew by 2.2 percent in 2008 compared with 2007. Total travel bookings fell by 2.1 percent year-on-year to 526.6 million but travel agency air bookings grew slightly, by 0.6 percent, to 364.2 million. Amadeus said the results for the 12 months ending December 31, 2008 was achieved in a declining market largely thanks to a 1.7 percentage point gain in market share. The company retains the top position in travel agency air bookings made through a GDS in 2008 with a market share of 35.6 percent.
“Amadeus’ business showed a reassuring degree of resilience against the extraordinary financial and trading environment of the second half of last year” David V. Jones, president and CEO said. "2008 was very much a year of two halves: a very strong first-half performance combined with the well-documented collapse in demand in the last six months meant we ended the year about level with 2007.
“In our global travel distribution services business, we gained 1.7 percentage points in market share which gave some protection against the drop in demand," Jones continued. "Looking at how 2009 is developing, travel agencies made 9.1 percent fewer air bookings through Amadeus in the first quarter of 2009 than Q1 2008. This is slightly better than the GDS market as a whole which, we estimate, fell by 13.2 percent over the same period.”
“We will concentrate on growing our market share and continuing the evolution of our diversified business lines as we ride out the worst effects of the global recession and strengthen our position to take advantage of an eventual recovery. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go before we can credibly start talking about recovery,” Jones said.
Amadeus also reported strong growth in the travel agency sector it serves worldwide.
In North America, Amadeus signed agreements with HTH Worldwide and Starcite to enable agents in the U.S. and Canada to, respectively, provide their customers with global health and safety information relating to their destinations and to offer integrated online travel and meeting management services to corporations.
In leisure travel, Amadeus created a new unit to provide tools for international leisure distribution called TravelTainment - The Amadeus Leisure Group. The unit brings together three Amadeus leisure technology businesses: TravelTainment, Amadeus Tours, and the product management and development for TOMA, a tour package distribution solution.
In 2008 the number of hotels available for travel agencies to book on behalf of their customers increased to 80,000. More than 50,000 of these hotels, accounting for over 75 percent of bookings, guarantee their Best Available Rate through Amadeus. Overall hotel bookings made through the Amadeus GDS during 2008 rose by 4.4 percent compared with 2007, generating more than 2.2 billion Euros for hotels using the system. 60 hotel brands have signed up to Amadeus’ commission management solution, Worldwide Commission Manager, which launched with travel agencies in France in 2008.
Amadeus said it continues to offer the widest range of cruise lines of any comparable distribution company and Amadeus cruise bookings grew by 19.6 percent in 2008 compared with 2007.
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