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Amadeus and Newmarket International – coming together to support the evolution of the hotels sector

Jeff Edwards & Jeff Hiscox

Head of Global Hotel Business, Amadeus IT Group & President and Chief Executive Officer, Newmarket International

With US hotel occupancy rates predicted to be at their highest since 1997, it is clear the hotel sector worldwide is bouncing back from the recession. But during the economic downturn, many hotels postponed investment in their technology platforms, making it increasingly difficult for them to stay competitive and adapt to the changing customer landscape. Amadeus invested $500 million in the acquisition of Newmarket International last year, putting us in a position to work together to help the global hotels sector modernize.

Jeff Hiscox Jeff_Edwards_Headshot

Our objectives

Hotels are facing the challenge of updating their systems in a market fragmented between traditional IT specialists, global technology providers, and in-house developments. Amadeus and Newmarket International are working together to reduce this complexity and provide hoteliers and bookers a greater quality of service with an end-to-end approach that is consistent across the globe.

We predict the annual global hotel IT market will be worth $6.4 billion by 2022; Amadeus and Newmarket International both see software-as-a-service (SaaS) as the key to unlocking this market. SaaS is flexible, modular, and responsive to changing business environments such as the rise of social media as a communication channel between businesses and their customers. Hoteliers can pick and choose the applications they need, which will integrate with their current ecosystems, adding more applications and services over time as their business needs change and grow.

Hoteliers can also use SaaS to plug into other solutions across their business operations, regardless of the brand name on the label. This is a valuable function, as there is no single vendor whose products span every conceivable service for a hotelier. Hotels routinely use products and services from multiple vendors, and it is important to support this need.

The Amadeus community model takes this open platform to the next level. We continuously upgrade the platform to reflect new needs emerging within this evolving market. For hoteliers, this ensures that each customer gets access to the latest technology developments, but how they use those developments is up to them – this way, hoteliers can devise marketing strategies to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Amadeus and Newmarket International will be working together on a number of initiatives, some geographical and others product-based. Our complementary portfolios and our individual strengths – Amadeus’ deep distribution experience and Newmarket International’s product suite for meeting room bookings and functional space inventory – work together to allow us to explore solutions that could benefit both hotels and the distribution network by connecting them more closely with travel buyers.

We’re looking forward to our shared future together, and we hope you are too.

Newmarket International’s annual conference takes place this week in Dallas, Texas.