Amadeus, a leading provider of technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, has launched Amadeus Master Pricer Agent Fare Families, a new option within the Master Pricer portfolio, which enables travel agents to make it easier for their customers to compare airlines’ fares and their associated conditions online. The solution permits a more transparent purchase process for the end consumer – who can clearly compare fares with the same conditions. In addition, the Amadeus Master Pricer Agent Fare Families solution improves the travel agency’s ability to direct customers to their most profitable content and upsell higher fares with more flexible conditions. This helps travel agents be a more attractive distribution channel, strengthening their relationship with the airline partners.

Like the world-class Master Pricer shopping solution it is based on, Agent Fare Families gives results of up to 200 domestic or international fare recommendations from more than 500 airlines. However, Master Pricer Agent Fare Families goes one step further, enabling travel agencies to group together fares with similar conditions, but offered by different airlines, into categories or fare families. For instance, non-refundable fares can be grouped together in one family; fares which are refundable but with a penalty can be grouped into a different family and fully flexible fares can be displayed in a third family. And so on and so forth up to 6 categories. This can improve customer satisfaction by correctly setting the expectation about the conditions attached to certain fares.

Travel agencies decide and design how the fare families are constructed and can give more visibility to specific air content. This latest characteristic makes Master Pricer Agent Fare Families a powerful merchandising tool.

By adding upselling functionalities, Master Pricer Fare Families helps travel agencies create a similar booking environment as offered by airlines, increasing customers’ choice and transparency of product features and improving the shopping experience.

“The launch of Master Pricer Fare Families shows Amadeus’ commitment to develop innovative tools that serve both online travel agencies and online sites of travel agencies to increase their merchandise and upselling opportunities, and thus, improve their cash flow. When airlines have displayed fare families in this way, within three months they have seen online revenues increase by 30% and online yields increase by 8% on average. In the case of travel agencies, this means, first, more revenue and improved cash flow and ultimately, higher yields” explains Stephane Durand, Director, Online and Leisure, Amadeus, “Travel agencies should be able to translate similar upsell performance into a significant improvement in their supplier relationships.”

Amadeus Master Pricer Fare Families is available now for online travel agencies and for travel agencies with online presence. The offline version of this solution will be made available by the end of 2010.