Asked to put the travel industry on a scale, 10 being the attainment of the holy grail of friction-free travel, Amadeus’ new president of strategic growth businesses Stefan Ropers put it at two or three.
“We haven’t gotten very far. The future is here, but it is not equally distributed. If you take gold members of Singapore Airlines on a journey from say Singapore to Europe and they stay at the airline’s partner hotels, they will probably experience the connected journey at six or seven, but that is not the reality for all,” said Ropers.
Ropers (left), who comes from outside travel, said this industry is still largely provider-centric, with each individual player trying to exclusively own the customer journey.
“But that is the wrong picture of the expectations of the traveller which is to have a fully integrated, end-to-end experience that doesn’t have the friction points,” said Ropers. “There is a huge opportunity to digitise that journey.”
Ropers says the responsibility of creating that seamless journey falls on players like Amadeus that do have relationships and the technology know-how to address the different touch points within the journey.
“There are not that many, but Amadeus is definitely one of the candidates. It has to be an organisation that has the clout to take the lead in orchestrating all of the players. It must be trustworthy and have the technology know-how. You can imagine there aren’t that many. But I believe we are definitely one of the candidates that could pull this off,” said Ropers.
To get to the end goal, Amadeus is looking to startups and innovators to help. It has developed several units to tap into that economy including Amadeus Explore, a networking platform to connect customers, experts and relevant stakeholders to startups; The Incubation Factory which as its name suggests, grows its own startups and also invests in others; and Amadeus Ventures, a vehicle to provide funds to invest in startups.
Ropers sees Asia as the “powerhouse of innovation”, driven largely by young digital populations. Particularly in the area of payments, Asia has leapfrogged other parts of the world and is leading the way in cardless, cashless payment methods.
Under the cloud of the global outbreak of Covid-19 and challenging times ahead, does he see opportunities for startups and innovators to shine?
“The startups could capitalise on the fact that they have little or less financial exposure vis-à-vis other corporations that are more affected by this situation, to try out new things. Also, there may be solutions that address some of the issues we are seeing right now.
“For example, we have one startup called GeoSure which develops real-time traveller safety zones and gives you information about where Covid-19 is very hot and where you shouldn’t travel to,” said Ropers.
At home, Amadeus is pushing ahead and continuing to invest in startup and innovation initiatives.
“Our north star is to create friction-free travel. If you consider this virus outbreak becoming very real today, you’ll see that friction-free travel has just been given a new dimension. Helping to sustain travel is our responsibility, and we will continue to innovate – that is what my unit is created to do. Our numbers are strong, our cashflow is strong, and we will continue to help the industry,” added Ropers.
Featured image credit: Getty Images
