Amadeus is signing a distribution deal with Travelodge, the UK’s long-established and fastest growing budget hotel chain, with more than 490 properties in the UK, Ireland and Spain.

This deal enables Travelodge to expand its distribution reach to budget conscious travellers using the services of travel professionals. Around 80% of Travelodge hotels are located in major city centres and popular holiday locations. The budget hotel chain is also growing rapidly with plans to operate 70,000 rooms (approximately 1000 hotels) by 2020 and today is the biggest hotel operator in London.

This distribution agreement will help Travelodge to attract more business travellers to their properties, as rooms for the chain will be seamlessly integrated into Amadeus Selling Platform and its user-friendly Hotels Plus booking tool – used in more than 90,000 travel professional points of sale worldwide. Travelodge rooms will also be bookable through Amadeus e-Travel Management, the self-booking tool for corporate travellers, as well as being made available to online travel sites and 3rd party developers using Amadeus Web Services.

Hugo Ehrnreich, Head of Hotel Distribution at Amadeus, said: “Our goal at Amadeus is to provide travel agency subscribers with the widest range of hotel content. Whether travel agents are looking to book five star accommodation, create itineraries for budget conscious business travellers, or help people enjoy more get-aways at affordable hotels such as Travelodge, Amadeus has something to suit everyone. For hoteliers, we deliver an unrivalled global distribution network of professional travel consultants who welcome providers that help streamline their workflow, by offering integrated content that saves time and helps them to sell accommodation more easily.”

Andy Besent, Sales Director, Travelodge, said: “Our exciting expansion plans mean it makes perfect sense to work with a forward-thinking company like Amadeus with their focus on growing the choice of content available and their extensive local and global reach within the travel agency community.”

It is anticipated that the 490 Travelodge properties will be available to Amadeus customers to book from 10 January 2012. Travelodge has also signed up to the Amadeus Best Available Rate guarantee, which means travel agents can book with confidence in the knowledge that their customers are getting the best deal. No special training is required to book the new content and the data is fully integrated with the Amadeus Passenger Name Record (PNR) which speeds up the booking process.