GDS claims rise in market share
Amadeus reported a drop in total travel bookings of 2.1% to 526.6m for 2008.
It said during the 12 months, its revenue grew by 2.2%, compared to 2007, to €2,861.4m while its market share grew by 1.7%
Air bookings grew in the year by 0.6% to 364.2m and Amadeus said it now had a 35.6% share of all air bookings made through GDSs.
David Jones, Amadeus' president and ceo, said business had showed a "reassuring degree of resilience against the extraordinary financial and trading environment of the second half of last year."
Mr Jones said that in2008 there had been a "very strong" first half performance followed by a "well-documented collapse in demand in the last six months."
It left the 2008 performance about level with that of 2007.
In the first quarter of 2009, Mr Jones said travel agencies had made 9.1% fewer bookings through Amadeus.
But he said this was better than the GDS market as a whole where the drop was 13.2%.
During 2008, Amadeus said it had signed long term agreements with major agencies in Northern Europe, Latin America, Asia and North America.
In Europe, it said 2008 had been a "very strong year" in the UK where "the opportunity for growth is still significant."
By September, it had signed deals with 35 new travel agency customers there as well as renewing a technology agreement with Ian Allen Travel.
Amadeus said it had migrated 13 airlines to its Altéa CMS system and signed contracts for a further 14 to do so.
Early in the year, it said it began rolling out its Airline Retailing Platform which enable carriers to act as retailers through the travel agency channel.
The number of hotels available on its GDS rose to 80,000 and there was a 4.4% increase in the number of hotel bookings, generating €2.2bn.
Mr Jones' said Amadeus' strategy was to "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.
But he added: "There is still a long way to go before we can credibly start talking about recovery."
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