Amadeus Assists Travel Agents In “Online Arena”

A seminar entitled “Success in Online Travel” was hosted by Amadeus in order to familiarize Greek travel agencies with various technological tools, to create awareness on emerging new online trends and to support them to “think” or even “re-think” their online strategies.

“Amadeus Hellas will continue to support travel professionals in every possible way in order to enable the success in their business efforts,” General Manager Amadeus Hellas Eva Karamanou told GTP during a specially designed one-day seminar for travel agencies organized for the first time in Athens, Greece, by global distribution system provider Amadeus.

The seminar entitled “Success in Online Travel,” organized in partnership with Netbil, was hosted by Amadeus in order to familiarize Greek travel agencies with various technological tools, to create awareness on emerging new online trends and to support travel agents to “think” or even “re-think” their online strategies.

Attendees at the seminar had the opportunity to comprehend how to interpret current trends in online travel, increase visitors to their websites and convert website “lookers” into “bookers.”

The seminar offered interesting presentations on online services and solutions.

Of particular interest was the presentation of Google Greece’s CEO, Stefanos Loukakos, who gave his point of view on the future of online travel.

Ernesto Sanchez Beaumont, Regional South Europe Market Manager Amadeus; Eva Karamanou, Genaral Manager Amadeus Hellas; Stefanos Loukakos, General Manager Google Hellas; Alketas Malioukis, Key Account Executive Amadeus Hellas; Renata Ivankovic, Business Solution Manager Amadeus IT Group; and Manos Markakis, Sales and Marketing Manager Amadeus Hellas, at the company’s “Success in Online Travel” seminar held last month at the King George Palace in Athens.

“The feedback from travel professionals justified our effort as participants expressed their wish for more in-depth online seminars and consultancy,” Ms. Karamanou said.

In regards to the online sales success rate today for Greek travel agencies, Amadeus’ general manager in Greece said a number of travel agencies already manage successful online businesses at local and/or global level.

“Other travel agencies are considering possible online strategies, the costs, the investment required and they plan and prepare for the future,” she said.

However, the economic turmoil in Greece seems to be holding back travel agents from pursuing online business opportunities.

According to Ms. Karamanou, travel agencies have progressed in regards to their online presence, but the majority remains “conservative” due to the crisis.

“Travel professionals are perhaps mostly interested to ‘secure’ their offline traditional business during this critical period of time and in parallel prepare for the future,” she said.

Amadeus is supporting the Greek travel market with knowledge and experience through seminars, road shows and reports, expert consultancy services and state-of-the-art online solutions.

“Especially the E-power solution and the web services available to travel agents from our system have been designed in a way that offers seamless services and the best possible solution to their every need, no matter how complex and difficult it is,” Ms. Karamanou told GTP.

Under the framework of Amadeus’ Corporate Social Responsibility, all proceeds collected from the “Success in Online Travel” seminar were offered to “The Smile of the Child” organization.