Industry-leading innovation, expertise and collaboration will deliver benefits to customers i the U.S., Canada and beyond.
BOSTON – Amadeus continues its multi-year business growth and expansion in the North America and announces its latest milestone in that evolution: the opening of a new-era Research & Development Center in the Boston area.
“Amadeus has been growing rapidly in North America and is partnering with some of the world’s biggest and best companies in the travel industry based in the US,” said Scott Gutz, President and CEO of Amadeus North America. “We have the brightest talent in travel and technology and our teams are focused on building unique solutions for our customers. Our local technical talent working in tandem with our travel industry customers promotes a deep understanding and trust that is at the core of successful innovation.”
Boston R&D Center reflects commitment to regional innovation and collaboration
Amadeus established its presence in the Boston “tech corridor” in 2001 with 75 employees initially focused on corporate e-commerce solutions. Now, at five times the size of its original location, the new and expanded Boston area R&D Center reflects a broad array of technical talent and brings Amadeus’ experts and services closer to many of the world’s leading travel companies based in North America.
“It’s a dynamic environment in which we’re creating the future of travel technology. We take a very collaborative approach to development. We believe in collaboration of our teams, in our workspace, with our global colleagues and, most importantly, with our customers,” said Murray Mazer, head of Global Innovation for Amadeus.
The new-generation workspace is structured around work areas or “neighborhoods” where R&D professionals work in agile, cross-functional teams and can pick up and work together anywhere in the building. The environmentally-forward, open-format model represents and fosters Amadeus’ core vision of bringing together the best talent and technologies to serve the needs of the market.
From savvy travel veterans to leading edge technologists and data scientists, Amadeus’ R&D teams will be focusing on developing new solutions addressing some of the travel industry’s most critical areas such as big data, business intelligence, low fare search, web services, hotel IT, airline ancillary services and NDC-XML initiatives.
“Thousands of industry customers and millions of travelers rely on us every day. And at a time when other companies are outsourcing or offshoring their technology services, we are thrilled to be expanding our local capabilities and resources so we can more closely work with our customers to achieve their business objectives,” said Mazer. “We’ve been fortunate to expand our partnerships with some of the biggest and best names in travel in the region including Southwest Airlines, Expedia, Orbitz and KAYAK, among others. Our customers are all counting on us to continually deliver leading technology.”
Located in the business park area of Waltham, Massachusetts, the new facility will host the majority of Amadeus’ R&D efforts in the region, in tandem with additional technology activities in Amadeus’ Miami and Dallas locations.
“Among 16 such R&D centers Amadeus operates, the new Boston facility is a key part of our truly global development network and focus on innovation worldwide. With its specific missions and focus areas, it will enable us to greatly enhance how we serve the broad spectrum of our travel industry customers, not only in North America but throughout the Americas region and beyond,” said Herve Couturier, Executive Vice President of Research & Development for Amadeus.
Significant business growth in North America
Over the past years, Amadeus has achieved significant growth in air travel agency bookings in North America, becoming one of the fastest growing regions for the company. For year-end 2014, North America reported the highest percentage growth (14.6%) in air travel agency booking volumes among Amadeus’ regions worldwide. From 2010 to 2014, Amadeus reported an 82% increase in North America travel agency bookings, moving from 34.7 million in 2010 to 63.4 million in 2014.
Amadeus’ employee base has expanded along with its business and now 1,400+ employees are on the ground in the U.S. and Canada. This is a 70+% increase over the past three years and further expansion is on the horizon.
Amadeus established its presence in North America in 1985 and currently has seven offices serving customers throughout the US and Canada (in alphabetical order): Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Miami, FL; Portsmouth, NH; Toronto, ON; and Tucson, AZ.
Amadeus take flight with SPARK THINKING
Amadeus have appointed SPARK THINKING to their full service event agency roster. The tender process was initiated in 2014 and concluded with the appointment of two agencies this January.
SPARK THINKING have been contracted by Amadeus for three years. They will support the Amadeus Global Events Team based in Nice (France) and at their headquarters in Madrid (Spain) to deliver their global event activity through offices in the UK, US and Germany.
Amadeus have a historical relationship with Ashfield Meetings & Events – the parent company of SPARK THINKING – dating back to 2010. In this time Ashfield have provided logistics and production services for over twenty events on three continents.
Amanda Hoffmeister (Head of Events, Amadeus) commented on the appointment: “The positioning of SPARK THINKING’s tender response aligned tried and tested logistical delivery expertise with exploratory and disruptive capabilities. It was exactly what we were looking for in an agency and matches the fast paced innovation and change that is driving the evolution of the travel industry. It seems we no longer track industry changes by looking at the calendar, but instead by looking at our watches. We felt SPARK THINKING understood these external influences that are impacting our industry and were fully connected to our brand positioning and strategy. We have every confidence that they will deliver new ideas and innovative solutions. We see them as a strategic partner that will help us to shape the future of travel through our event and communications activity.”
Luke Flett (Head of Marketing, SPARK THINKING) commented: “It is a significant achievement for SPARK THINKING to have been appointed by a prestigious, market-leading brand such as Amadeus. They are a forward-thinking business who are pleased to develop genuine partnerships with their agencies where they encourage the status quo to be challenged. In this respect SPARK THINKING have a shared approach and philosophy – we both believe in harnessing disruptive forces, staying ahead of the wave of change and identifying new opportunities. For Amadeus we focussed a lot of our thinking for the pitch around three major trends that will be critical to the next generation of travel and the technology that powers it: personalization, connectivity and sustainability. The team here are eager to start developing these ideas into specific and localised event concepts.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
