Amadeus technology chosen by 5 online travel agents in rapidly growing Indian market

Madrid, Spain, 05 February 2007: Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, today announced that it has recently been chosen as a technology provider to five of the leading Indian online travel agencies: Indiatimes, MakeMyTrip, Sify, Travelguru and Yatra. Each of these online travel agencies is using the Amadeus API, giving online access to - and the ability to book - the full range of domestic and international airline content in Amadeus' distribution system. Each has also chosen Amadeus Master Pricer, one of the industry’s leading international air fare search engines to help their users find the best fares in Amadeus.

This announcement comes at a time when the Indian online travel market is booming. According to a recent PhocusWright report (September 2006) the strong growth in the Indian online travel market is set to continue for the foreseeable future. The growth is driven by economic liberalisation and an ever growing middle class population, expected to exceed 100 million by the end of the decade. PhocusWright predicts that the online leisure market will be worth over USD2 billion in 2008, of which 25% will be transacted by online travel agencies - compared with only USD300 million in 2005.

"In 2006 Yatra was launched as a one stop online travel agency to address all the needs of the Indian traveller For us it was important to partner with a technology company that could provide us with the online tools, travel content and technology needed to scale rapidly. We are very pleased to be working with Amadeus and feel that they are fully prepared to support the ever growing online market in India", says Dhruv Shringi, Co Founder of Yatra travel.

"At MakeMyTrip it is an integral part of our strategy to offer an excellent service to our customers. This means providing them with the right technology and tools to enhance their online shopping experience and to fulfil their travel needs at the lowest rates. We are very happy to be working with Amadeus and believe that this new partnership will allow us to further improve our customer offering and build on our online success", says Keyur Joshi, Co Founder and COO of MakeMyTrip.

"The online travel agency market in India is expected to double in size in 2007 and again in 2008. This is an exceptionally exciting market and we look forward to working with the existing and future stars of the Indian online travel market. As testament to our dedication to the Indian online market Amadeus held a forum for leading online travel agencies on 1 and 2 February 2007 in New Delhi, where we discussed how together we can take the Indian online travel market into a new era," says Gillian Gibson, Vice President, Multinational Customer Group, Amadeus.

Comments, Ankur Bhatia, Managing Director, Amadeus India, "Amadeus in India has always been at the forefront of travel technology providing the very best in this field. The new genre of online travel is fast sweeping the nation and Amadeus is right there in the leadership slot empowering all major players who at present account for almost 65% of total online travel in India."

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Notes to the editors:

Indiatimes located in Gurgaon launched in 2002
MMT located in Delhi launched in 2000 and domestic operations were launched in 2004.
Yatra located in Gurgaon launched in 2006
Sify located in Chennai launched planned for 2007
Travelguru located in Mumbai,launched in 2006

About Yatra
Yatra (www.yatra.com) is the assisted, online and call-center-based travel services company for the India market. Yatra helps businesses and consumers book travel by offering them travel-related information, pricing, availability and reservations for airlines, hotels, railway, buses and car rentals across 5000 large cities and small rural areas throughout India. Yatra’s customer service center enables business and family/leisure travelers to make well-informed and cost effective bookings 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yatra customers benefit from first priority booking and customized travel packages and deals for multiple large to small hotels, airlines, railways, buses and car rentals at the lowest prices, as a result of strategic relationships with the leading travel suppliers across the country. Yatra’s world-renowned investors include Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) – Promod Haque’s leading venture capital firm, Reliance Capital (a member of Reliance – Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group), and Television 18 Group (TV18)—India's premier news broadcaster (CNBC TV18, CNN-IBN and Awaaz) and a leading Internet player (running moneycontrol.com, commoditiescontrol.com and ibnlive.com) founded by Raghav Bahl. For more information visit www.yatra.com or e-mail info@yatra.com.

About Makemytrip.com
The India business of MMT was launched in September 2005. As the first and only comprehensive online travel site with real time booking for flights, hotels, holidays and cars, MakeMyTrip.com is heralding a revolution in the way travel will be bought in India. Within a year of its launch MakeMyTrip has acquired over 250,000 delighted customers and sells over 4000 flight tickets, 400 hotel room nights and over 100 holiday packages every day. The site attracts over 1.2 Million unique visitors every month according to WebSideStory, HBx Analytics, an independent traffic-monitoring agency. In India MakeMyTrip has also
partnered with ICICI to power their TravelSmart Card, is providing travel services to HSBC credit card customers, Visa and Kingfisher to service their travel offers and also power the online flight auctions of GoAir and Kingfisher on the Rediff website. Headquartered at New Delhi, MakeMyTrip has projected a turnover of Rs 600 crores (USD 130 Millions) in current fiscal, which is a 200% growth from last year’s registered sales of Rs 200 crores (USD 42 Million). MakeMyTrip.com has over 450 employees on board and offers 24x7 customer service.

About Amadeus
Amadeus is the chosen technology partner for providers, sellers, and buyers of travel. The company provides distribution, IT and point-of-sale solutions to help its customers adapt, grow and succeed in the fast changing travel industry. Customer groups include travel providers (airlines, hotels, car rental companies, railway companies, ferry lines, cruise lines, insurance companies and tour operators), travel sellers (travel agencies) and travel buyers (corporations and travellers). Solutions are grouped in four solution categories – Distribution & Content, Sales & e-Commerce, Business Management and Services & Consulting.

Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters & marketing), Nice (development) and Erding (Operations – data processing centre) and regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires and Bangkok. At market level, Amadeus maintains customer operations in 76 countries covering more than 215 markets.

The company is owned by WAM Acquisition, whose shareholders are BC Partners, Cinven, Air France, Iberia and Lufthansa. Amadeus employs over 7,160 employees worldwide, representing 95 nationalities. Amadeus’ revenue for the six months year ended 30 June was EUR1,381.6m.


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