Amadeus is set to launch its first platform to harness ‘big data’ by the end of this year.
The travel technology firm is working on producing a framework which will allow travel companies to integrate the huge amounts of data which are now becoming available. To learn more about big data – read our feature here.
Amadeus’ head of business intelligence Pascal Clement said: “What we are building is an infrastructure to support different customers to build this technology.
“We think that this harnessing of big data will allow TMCs to offer a superior service to their customers and we will work with them to do this.
“In the long-term, it could allow companies to spend less on travel, do it more efficiently and make their travellers’ journeys more effective.”
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Clement added that one of the areas they would be developing was “extreme search” which allows more detailed and personalised searching for travel components such as flights or hotels.
“We can put much more sophisticated parameters in search so that it becomes more personalised,” he said. “They can search on different components such as the type of airline or the average number of stopovers.”
Clement said that the biggest challenge in bringing together information from travel companies was that the data was “very siloed”.
“We need to bring that data together so that it has more value for the end consumer and make it much easier for the corporate travel agency to use,” he added.
Clement was speaking at the launch of Amadeus’ new report on big data, entitled “At the Big Data Crossroads: turning towards a smarter travel experience”, which has been written by Professor Tom Davenport.
Davenport told BBT that big data had the potential to make it much easier for travel managers to keep track of their travellers but added that the business travel industry was lagging behind the leisure sector when it came to using big data.
“TMCs are making small strides but there’s a long way to go,” he said. “It’s very important to make sure that corporate travel buyers are aware of the possibilities, so that they can see the benefits of adoption and investment into big data by TMCs.”
- To read more about the Amadeus report into big data, click here