Amadeus pins hopes on India, China for growth

India and China are emerging as the growth drivers in Asia-Pacific region, which is turning out to be the key market for Amadeus, the euro 1.9 billion global distribution system (GDS) and IT solution provider to the travel and tourism industry.

With around 31 per cent market share in the region as in March 2004, Amadeus has zooms past its arch-rival Galileo (30 per cent) and other GDS players including Abacus (27 per cent), Sabre (10 per cent) and Worldspan (3 per cent), the company executives said in a recent international media conference.

"Asia-Pacific is experiencing the highest growth of all regions. It contributes more than 11 per cent of the total travel agency bookings made in the company," Oliver Froger, director- product market management (Asia-Pacific) said.

"The travel industry has witnessed a major downturn in the recent past affecting all major markets and traditional airlines suffered massive losses. Asia's resilience compared to other regions has been remarkable. The emergence of more low-cost airlines and with e-ticketing solutions gaining ground, the market scenario has changed favourably for us," he added.

Headquartered at Madrid in Spain, Amadeus provides distribution, marketing and IT services to the travel industry worldwide.

The Amadeus System is a computerised global distribution system that enables airlines, hotels, car rental companies to disseminate information about the schedules, availability, pricing and ticketing of their worldwide services.

Its client base consists of around 500 airlines, 51,000 hotels, 26,000 car rental locations, 11 cruise liners, 29 insurance providers and seven rail operators across the globe.

(This correspondent's trip was sponsored by Amadeus)