Amadeus' Kay Urban
Paul Tribe and Christine James
Paula Turk with Roman Masek of
Merit Travel
It was another steamy night in downtown T.O. but that didn’t put off the select group of agents and suppliers from venturing into the heart of the city to help Amadeus celebrate its new digs on Duncan Street.
“We’ve moved into the city from our airport location for several reasons,” Paula Turk, Regional Director, North America East told me. “We wanted a bigger and more central presence here in Canada – and this facility also incorporates a classroom so we have more accessible training facilities.”
Also hosting was Kay Urban, President and CEO Americas (yes, that’s North, Central and South) – who started in the business as a part-time res agent for Eastern Airlines 33 years ago. I asked her how she felt the Canadian market differed from that in the U.S. and, bless her, she said we are completely different. “A strong charter market, just two really strong carriers, it’s very, very different. We can’t even begin to think of doing things the same way as the U.S.”
And since Amadeus is all about technology, I couldn’t help asking a few of those present if they felt Google’s ITA purchase was a threat to the current GDS suppliers. The reaction?
Paula felt they would be “just another aggregator” while Kay felt it was “way too early to speculate”. Paul Tribe of Uniglobe Discover in Kitchener/Guelph said “It’s hard to know what it’s going to look like.”
The most emphatic reaction was that of Christine James of Vacation.com, an Amadeus subsidiary. “Agents are creatures of habit who will book whoever they are most comfortable with. And don’t forget, there will be no visibility for the agency with the end supplier – it will appear just as one of many Google bookings, so you don’t have any clout with your suppliers any more when it comes to special treatment or favours.”
Sounds like Amadeus will be in their snazzy new digs for quite a while!
