The travel and tourism industry is one of the most significant in terms of its contribution to global GDP. In 2011, when the global economy was stalling, the sector continued to grow by 3 percent, contribute $2 trillion to global GDP and support 98 million jobs worldwide according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (Economic Impact Research 2012).

With this in mind, the ability of countries to attract foreign visitors is increasingly regarded as an important contributor to national GDP and as a source of job creation.

However, historically the industry has been poor at aggregating and benchmarking data to help countries and the sector itself to maximise the abundant opportunities available from travel and tourism. This means that often the industry is ill-equipped with the information and insights that are so important to effective decision-making. Whether those decisions are related to destination development, managing major events such as the Olympics or planning for transport infrastructure.

Despite the fact that the travel and tourism value chain is heavily computerized, the ability to draw insights from all the available data remains limited. This is because the industry tends to be fragmented and silo-based and collaboration is both culturally and practically difficult. This is in stark contrast to other sectors such as retail, financial services and consumer goods which use data on a daily basis across their supply chains to improve performance, promote efficiencies and better serve the customer.

At ForwardKeys, we are focused on supporting the sector to use data more effectively. The report,  London Olympic Games 2012: Impact on inbound travel (as of May 2012), we have released today in partnership with Amadeus provides insights into the impact of the London 2012 Olympic Games on travel and tourism. With approximately 50 days to go, we have seen bookings up by 13 per cent from this period last year and we have been able to provide a country-by-country view of where visitors to London are coming from.

The research reveals a range of trends which will help the UK understand who is visiting from where and to fully maximise the opportunities presented by such a volume of inbound tourism. And likewise, for travel providers such as hotels, airlines, car rental companies and others, these insights into who is visiting in July and August can support their marketing and merchandising efforts.

Maximising the opportunity of inbound tourism is only possible if you are able to understand what the opportunity is – and that can only be delivered by data-led insights.

Information is power, and now is the time for the industry to embrace it. In today’s environment, when growth is proving elusive for many sectors and countries, the travel and tourism continues to be a bright light, with annual growth over the next decade to 2022 forecast to be 4.2 per cent according to the World Travel and Tourism Council Economic Impact Research 2012.

Nonetheless, growth will continue to be hard fought, and the right information and data will be a key weapon.

You can see our previous report, 150 days out: how the Olympic Games affect travel.

We’ve achieved some significant milestones during the course of our history.

Turning 10 years old in 1997 and celebrating the milestone of operating in 119 markets.

Partnering with British Airways and Qantas in the year 2000 to develop the next generation of customer IT management solutions for airlines.

Achieving the landmark number of 23 million active PNRs and handling nearly 2,500 transactions per second in the year 2003.

Celebrating our 20th anniversary and the milestone of processing 2 million travel reservations every day in 2007.

And processing more than 948 million key billed travel transactions last year alone.

Today, we’re celebrating different kinds of milestones – achieving more than 2,000 connections on Facebook and Twitter, nearly 14,000 followers on LinkedIn, and more than 10,000 subscribers to this blog.

These are important milestones to us because they represent forward progress in building a vibrant community and signify the dawn of a new era of innovation and collaboration with people from all around the world.

If you haven’t already – we invite you to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and subscribe to this blog to share your visions of the future of travel.

Our recent study Empowering inspiration: the future of travel search, in partnership with PhoCusWright, was conceived with the aim of stimulating discussion within the industry and examines consumer behavior across multiple regions, to understand how travellers make holiday and travel decisions today, and how they would like to make them in the future.

Below are the key findings with regards to the frustrations travellers face when planning travel.

It’s not really too much information, but it feels like it

The biggest issue in travel planning for most markets is perceived to be information overload. But more specifically it is the organization and navigability of content that typically discourages people, along with a healthy dose of irrelevant information. Summarizing information at a high level, then allowing consumers to drill for more detail can help cut the clutter.

Frugality fuels frustration

Many consumers feel like they are making a hasty, potentially regrettable purchase if they do not shop around. In addition, the pricing volatility resulting from the practice of yield management has created substantial anxiety about when to book. It can feel like a game of chicken to the traveler who wonders if he should wait or book. Tools that support price benchmarking for shoppers can help address this booking anxiety.

Destination decisions need support

Roughly half of discretionary travellers in developed markets and nearly two thirds in emerging markets do not have a specific destination in mind when they start their trip planning process. Yet, it is not easy to browse destinations on most travel websites today. Especially for inexperienced travellers coming from emerging markets, there is a need for better roll-ups and condensed snapshots of information such as seasonal temperature/precipitation and price ranges. Freshness and accuracy of destination information is also an issue, particularly for emerging markets.

For more insights and an in-depth explanation of the methodology used in this study – download the full Empowering inspiration: the future of travel search study.

What things frustrate you when planning travel?

Download our latest airline industry report: Reinventing the Airport Ecosystem.

The airport environment as we know it today is undergoing massive transformation, and if predictions are correct, airports of the future will become functional, efficient and even exciting destination attractions that we can look forward to visiting.  Our airline industry report – Reinventing the Airport Ecosystem – takes a closer look at the changing face of tomorrow’s airports.

Airports represent a mini-world

The way airports function is largely dependant on the wider environment in which they operate. Influenced by economic indicators, politics, environmental pressures, legislative rulings, social demographics and technology innovation, airports play a major strategic role in any country’s economy.

Wake-up, we’re unhappy!

But like any business, airports must evolve to meet the demands of the customers they serve, and with 72% of today’s airline passengers stressed and unhappy with the overall journey experience, a dramatic wake-up call is required.  Fortunately, airports are already rising to the challenge, leaning heavily on technological advancement to help drive change and innovation.

What does the airport want to ‘be’?

This is a key question for airport stakeholders and will determine the approach they take in terms of architectural design, financing, service offering, level of automation, location and engagement with other airport players. The models put forward include:

• ‘mini-city’ airport: a self-sufficient entity, separate from its local surroundings, offering full passenger services
• ‘city-extension’ airport: tightly integrated into the local city and treated as a community resource
• ‘mall’ airport: where the array of shopping and entertainment facilities on offer will attract even non-flying customers
• ‘walkway’ airport: minimal on-site facilities, designed for passengers to check-in remotely and just ‘arrive and fly’
• ‘bus-station’ airport: a no-frills atmosphere where speed and efficiency are key.  Drop off, pass through security, board and fly, with little or no emphasis on added-value services

Change comes at a price

The aviation business is by its very nature volatile, with rising fuel costs and squeezed margins on one side, and the need to invest in technology and services on the other. The answer to this conundrum: the pursuit of non-aeronautical revenues (retail, leisure, dining, land rental), and new approaches to financing the airport infrastructure (asset sharing, modular architecture, community/ecosystem funding, public/private partnerships).

The next 10-20 years holds great potential for airports and all those involved in air travel, and as this report will demonstrate, innovation, collaboration and engagement will determine the success of tomorrow’s airport ecosystem.

Download the free report and don’t hesitate to give us your feedback.

Follow us on twitter @AmadeusITGroup and keep visiting this blog as we bring you more of the report’s insights under the category: Airline Industry Report

Our latest travel industry report, Reinventing the Airport Ecosystem, is now available for download.

A follow up to last year’s Navigating the Airport of Tomorrow – Reinventing the Airport Ecosystem offers an insider’s perspective of the major influences which have a bearing on industry performance.

Uniting field research, interviews with key representatives from major business sectors, and data from a large sample of global travellers – this report seeks to understand which future strategies will help determine the way airlines and airports can provide a competitive response to managing a streamlined total trip experience for decades to come.

Have a look at the full report and check this blog often for insightful follow up posts during the next few weeks.

The term ‘thought leadership’ is one that in recent years has become terribly over-used: misunderstood by many, misused by a few, and meaningless to everyone without a proper definition or context. But when it’s executed properly, it can be an incredibly powerful tool and one which can provide genuine insight to multiple audiences.

In its truest sense, it should be about pro-actively setting the industry agenda, stimulating debate and encouraging new thinking. It works best when it’s steeped in credible third-party research, ideally both quantitative and qualitative, and when the research is used as a platform to allow wider analysis, conjecture and predictions about the future across multiple markets.

At Amadeus, we define thought leadership as striving to challenge the industry’s thinking, or accepted way of working, helping our customers and staff to be prepared for the future, and to understand how that future will impact every single part of our industry. We also like to think it helps us deliver on our promise to be a technology pioneer for the travel and tourism sector.

Looking back at our past thought leadership studies, the first ever study we commissioned was called Traveller Tribes 2020 and this was launched in conjunction with the Henley Centre. The study evaluated the macro-environment and associated factors which would shape the airline sector of the future; also showcasing the types of technologies and applications that will become mainstream across travel by 2020.

The Austere Traveller was next, this time in partnership with The Economist Intelligence Unit, and this investigated the effect of corporate cutbacks on hotels and how business travel is changing more generally.

We followed this with The Amateur-Expert Traveller, which looked at how recession can actually deliver new business opportunities and innovations to the travel industry, empowering the end consumer in the process thanks to the latest developments online.

In the autumn of 2010 we launched The Travel Gold Rush 2020 with Oxford Economics, and this sought to understand growth and profitability trends in the travel sector more generally.  Most recently of course, this year we published From Chaos to Collaboration which was designed to examine to what extent travel will become more collaborative over the next decade, both in terms of how people travel, and how travel providers work together with travellers.

Have a look at all of our all of our past thought leadership papers.

This year and beyond, as well as continuing to discuss and develop key themes from our most recent report, we will also begin to think about where we take the concept of ‘thought leadership’ next, ensuring we are still adding value to our multiple stakeholders around the world. Watch this space for more details!

We’re pleased to announce that the Amadeus Corporate Responsibility Report 2011, which was prepared in accordance to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3.1 Guidelines, has received GRI’s Application Level A+ Statement, which is the highest possible grade.

The Global Reporting Initiative is a non-profit organization that promotes economic, environmental, and social sustainability, and it has become a common standard for sustainability reporting. Even though GRI’s Application Levels do not provide an opinion on the sustainability performance of the reporting organization, they aim to reflect the degree of transparency against the GRI Guidelines in reporting.

Following GRI’s guidelines requires specific efforts in terms of the broad scope of information to cover, from governance to human rights; and the external verification of the information reported by an external party.

By achieving the A+ Application Level Amadeus demonstrates the maximum possible level of transparency in the reporting, showing our commitment towards corporate responsibility and serving as an important reference for investors particularly concerned with sustainability.

In addition, the process of gathering information and putting the report together gives us the opportunity to identify areas for improvement and to learn from the best practices of other companies either within or outside the travel industry, enriching our company culture.

The full report will be released towards the end of this month, so keep an eye on this blog for the latest news.

Today we have announced that Amadeus has been granted a €200 million loan for innovation by the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The loan will be used by Amadeus to finance the research & development of a variety of projects in the area of IT for airlines, airports, hotels, and rail between 2012 and 2014.

The EIB is the long-term lending institution of the European Union. It makes sound investments that contribute towards EU policy goals – such as promoting the knowledge economy.

Continued investment in innovative IT solutions is central to the Amadeus ethos and we invested approximately €2 billion in R&D between 2004 and 2011.  Globally we have sixteen R&D centres, currently housing over 4,000 people.

Speaking about the loan, Philippe de Fontaine Vive Curtaz, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank said:

Amadeus’ commitment to innovation and proven track record in developing successful IT solutions fits naturally with our commitment to promoting the European knowledge economy.

And our President & CEO, Luis Maroto, also commented:

We are honoured to be recognised by an institution as prestigious as the European Investment Bank.  We feel this is further proof of our long-term commitment to developing innovative customer-focused solutions and will use this €200 million loan to continue developing world class IT solutions that will revolutionise the travel industry.

We’re nearly half way through 2012 and it has been an exciting year in the travel industry thus far. Have a look at our infographics from the first half of this year below and let us know what you think.

From chaos to collaboration – insight into the future of travel

Why airlines around the globe are converting to the cloud

New outlook on worldwide passenger demand

Airports, airlines, ground handlers – part of a unique ecosystem dependent on strong collaboration between its players to service the diverse needs of today’s passengers. But airport customers are disillusioned – unhappy with the fragmented nature of their journey, unsatisfied with the facilities on offer at airports, frustrated by queues and lengthy airside processes, disgruntled by the lack of personalisation provided at airport touch-points.

These observations have emerged from in-depth research which takes a close look at how passengers perceive their interaction with airport players today, and what their demands are for an improved airport environment 5, 10, 20 years from now. Whilst some passengers desire a full-service airport, complete with fabulous shopping, fine dining  and entertainment with games, others require a functional, no-frills model getting them from A to B at minimum cost and with maximum efficiency. Between these two extremes lie a whole host of airport models which each ecosystem must evaluate in terms of operational, financial and logistical capabilities – the ultimate aim being to drive increased passenger footfall and spend.

Reinventing the Airport Ecosystem is an industry report based on input from futurist researchers, industry experts and airport stakeholders. It carries out an extensive analysis and evaluation of all aspects of the airport landscape and looks at how the evolution of new airport models will transform the travel experience for passengers.

Please visit the Amadeus blog on 24 May to download the full report.

Update 24 May: You can now download the report here: Reinventing the Airport Ecosystem