Amadeus and Premier Inn sign global distribution deal

Madrid, Spain, 22 July 2010: Amadeus, a leading travel technology partner and transaction processor for the global travel and tourism industry, today announces a distribution deal with Premier Inn, the UK and Ireland’s biggest hotel chain, which will allow 580 of the chain’s properties to be booked through Amadeus.

The deal will enable Premier Inn to continue to expand its distribution beyond the UK and Irish domestic markets, and focus on key markets including France, Spain, Italy and Germany. As the UK and Ireland’s biggest budget hotel chain Premier Inn is ideally placed to attract European holidaymakers looking for good value for money breaks, as recent figures suggest visits to European destinations are expected to grow 2.4% in 2010 and then accelerate to 3.8% in 2011 . The deal will also help Premier Inn to attract more business travellers to their properties, as rooms for the chain will now be accessible through over 103,000 points of sale worldwide.

The distribution deal has added over 42,000 rooms within the UK and Ireland to Amadeus. The budget rates offered by Premier Inn provide ideal content for many Amadeus subscribers, as cost-conscious travellers, from both the leisure and corporate sectors, increasingly look for good value accommodation.

Hugo Ehrnreich, Head of Hotel Distribution at Amadeus, said: “Having Premier Inn content is great news for us as it further increases our UK and Ireland market coverage and gives Amadeus a well-balanced portfolio of hotel content across all price ranges. This is an important part of Amadeus’ commitment to providing relevant content, as recent feedback from our travel agency partners shows that demand for budget hotels is soaring. We’re also pleased to say that we were Premier Inn’s first global distribution choice, and we look forward to building on this successful partnership.”

Gerard Tempest, Marketing Director for Premier Inn, said: “Amadeus was an obvious distribution choice for Premier Inn – their global reach and in-depth knowledge of different markets matches our business expansion strategy. Through Amadeus we’ve got a real-time data exchange to instantly provide our content to bookers all over the world. It’s an extremely cost-effective solution and we are fortunate to be able to use the same provider for our revenue management and global distribution solutions.”

The implementation of Premier’s 580 properties on Amadeus begins mid-July and work will proceed in phases: prioritizing airport and major city hotels. The implementation will be complete by mid-August this year, when all Premier Inn content will be fully bookable.

Amadeus already provides Revenue Management Systems (RMS) to all Premier Inn properties in the UK: the new deal will expand the partnership to include distribution as well as IT.

– Ends –

Notes for editors:

• Premier Inn is set to be the largest provider of budget hotels in London by the 2012 Olympics.
• Travel agencies looking for more information on Premier Inn content should contact their Amadeus account manager, or contact their local Amadeus sales team.

About Premier Inn

Award-winning Premier Inn is the UK’s biggest hotel brand with over 590 budget hotels and more than 40,000 rooms across the UK and Ireland. Premier Inn bedrooms feature en-suite bathrooms, TV with Freeview, and WiFi internet access. Premier Inn offers customers a money-back ‘Good Night Guarantee’ of a good quality room, comfortable surroundings and friendly service, which is unique amongst Britain’s leading hotel chains.

All Premier Inns feature a bar and restaurant; situated inside the hotel or adjacent, offering a wide range of food choices.

In 2008 Premier Inn launched in Dubai and is now open in Bangalore, India. On a domestic front, Premier Inn is set to be the largest provider of budget hotels in London by 2012.

Premier Inn is currently offering rooms for just £29 (restrictions apply). Visit www.premierinn.com for full terms and conditions.
Premier Inn supports WaterAid, the international charity whose mission is to overcome poverty by enabling the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. Premier Inn, as part of Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, aims to raise £1 million for WaterAid over the next two years. Details can be found at www.wateraid.org/whitbread.


About Amadeus

Amadeus is the leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry.

Customer groups include travel providers (e.g airlines, hotels, rail, ferries, etc.), travel sellers (travel agencies and websites), and travel buyers (corporations and individual travellers).

The group operates a transaction-based business model and processed more than 670 million billable travel transactions in 2009.

Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters and marketing), Nice (development) and Erding (Operations – data processing centre) and regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires, Bangkok and Dubai. At a market level, Amadeus maintains customer operations through 72 local Amadeus Commercial Organisations covering 195 countries.

Amadeus is listed on the Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia stock exchanges and trades under the symbol “AMS.MC”. For the year ended 31 December 2009, the company reported revenues of EUR 2,461 million and EBITDA of EUR 894 million. The Amadeus group employs over 9,300 employees worldwide, with 123 nationalities represented at the central offices.

To find out more about Amadeus please click here.

To visit the Amadeus Investor Relations centre please click here.


Contact details


Epoch, on behalf of Amadeus
Chris Clarke
Helen Fitzhugh
tel: +44 (0)20 7401 8001
e-mail: cclarke@epochpr.com
hfitzhugh@epochpr.com

Amadeus
Corporate Communication / Corporate Marketing
tel: +34 91 582 0160
fax : +34 91 582 0188
e-mail : mediarelations@amadeus.com