Amadeus
has signed more than
50 new cruise customers during the year to date.  With these new signings,
Amadeus UK has seen significant growth in online cruise bookings of more
than 300 percent (year-on-year) through it’s Cruise solution. 

Nigel Esdale, Commercial Director P&O Cruises said, “P&O Cruises have now
been available through Amadeus Cruise for 2 years.  During this period we
have seen a steady increase in the volume of cruises being booked online and
have had great feedback from our agents in terms of how much easier Amadeus
Cruise makes the booking process.  As cruise holidays continue to gain
popularity in the UK, we anticipate that the Amadeus solution will continue
to provide a popular booking channel for our trade partners.”

Amadeus continues to lead the industry with the most up-to-date and
user-friendly cruise solution.  Amadeus Cruise was the first and only cruise
booking tool to be offered standalone or as part of a GDS suite of products.
The solution allows any UK travel agency to sell cruise holidays right from
their desktop using the Internet, regardless of their location or GDS
affiliation.  With eight cruise providers currently available, more than 250
agencies throughout the UK are now making cruise bookings through Amadeus
Cruise. 

Arnaud Debuchy, Managing Director Amadeus UK said, “Although air bookings
have traditionally been the focus of the GDS, Amadeus is placing increasing
emphasis on solutions for the non-air side of the market as this is what
the industry has been crying out for.  Due to the significant investment
that Amadeus continues to make in Cruise and other non-air solutions, our
agents are seeing significant time savings throughout the booking process
together with improvements in the service that they are able to offer their
clients due to the real-time information they now have at their fingertips.”

As part of Amadeus’ continual drive to provide solutions to meet the needs
of the industry, Amadeus is now an associate member of the Passenger
Shipping Association
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