Visit Flanders and Amadeus map booking behaviour

Vilvoorde, Belgium, 18 November, 2015 - Visit Flanders and Amadeus, a leading technology partner for the global travel industry, have joined forces in the field of data intelligence. On behalf of Visit Flanders, Amadeus will map out the booking behavior of international tourists in great detail, with Norway being the first test case for the cooperation between the organizations. The choice is no coincidence, because Visit Flanders started operating in the Norwegian market earlier this month.

On the basis of real-time booking data, Amadeus provides analyses of the travel behavior of international tourists, as well as the annual developments in this area. In addition, Amadeus also offers an insight into the future trends in tourism. This is exactly what Visit Flanders wants, because, as a knowledge and strategy-driven organization, they aim to deploy their marketing resources as efficiently as possible in order to make their campaigns as targeted and smart as possible.

“Travel professionals increasingly approach Amadeus looking for customized solutions in the area of data intelligence”, says Luc Pannecoeck, Amadeus General Manager Benelux. “The demand thereby comes from various angles: agencies, destination management organizations, tourist services, you name it - in short, anyone who wants to focus their strategy on the basis of good data analyses. We are very pleased to be working with a leading partner such as Visit Flanders. It reflects the professionalism with which Visit Flanders is taking its mission to heart.

As an IT Technology company, and working together with Visit Flanders, we have mapped out their specific needs in the field of data analyses (in this case for the Norwegian incoming traffic into Flanders), and have come up with a tailor-made solution.”

“As a professional organization, Visit Flanders wants to have an accurate picture of the average tourist who travels to Flanders that is as up-to-date as possible”, says Peter De Wilde, CEO of Visit Flanders. “We are therefore specifically looking for data that can bring us closer to the results of our business. The numbers do indeed tell the tale. The data that Amadeus supplies provides us with an accurate picture of the search, booking and departure data of tourists on a weekly basis, so that we can plan our campaigns in as targeted a way as possible. We have chosen the Norwegian market to test the cooperation with Amadeus. We have, in fact, just started up activities in this market, and naturally want to work on the basis of as much information as possible. As we are dealing with flight data, a market like Norway is an excellent choice for this test. Norwegian tourists mainly book city trips to Flanders, and fly to Brussels.”

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Notes to the editors :

ABOUT VISIT FLANDERS

The mission of Visit Flanders is 'to contribute to the long-term development of tourism in and to Flanders, with a view to increase economic returns, employment and well-being (for the Flemish population)'.  This mission includes the four pillars on which the operation of Visit Flanders is based:

• to make the tourist services in Flanders more attractive through targeted investments and support
• to actively promote the destination Flanders in order to attract more visitors
• to make full participation in tourism available to every Flemish citizen
• to stimulate the increase in professionalism of the sector in order to ensure quality tourist services for visitors

ABOUT AMADEUS

Amadeus is a leading provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel industry. Customer groups include travel providers (e.g. airlines, hotels, rail and ferry operators, etc.), travel sellers (travel agencies and websites), and travel buyers (corporations and travel management companies).

The Amadeus group employs around 13,000 people worldwide, across central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters), Nice (development) and Erding (operations), as well as 71 local Amadeus Commercial Organisations globally.

The group operates a transaction-based business model.

Amadeus is listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange under the symbol “AMS.MC” and is a component of the IBEX 35 index.

To find out more about Amadeus please visit www.benelux.amadeus.com , and www.blog.benelux.amadeus.com  for more on the travel industry.

Contact details :

Visit Flanders
Stef Gits - Visit Flanders spokesman
T: +32 2 504 25 12
M: +32 486 22 67 95

Amadeus Benelux
Luc Pannecoeck
T: +32 2 257 99 11 / +31 23 554 1430
F: +32 2 460 03 84 / +31 23 562 4272
Email: info@benelux.amadeus.com