How would you describe the upturn in business travel?
Bertrand Poey - The recovery is good if we look at the overall IATA figures, we are at around 95% compared with 2019. For the French market airlines expect the number of seats stolen in October to be in line with the same period in 2019. This is also forecast for November and December. We are seeing the same dynamic inhotels with occupancy rates of 76% in July. This is 5 points higher than in North America, which generally posts the highest figures. There is a real dynamic...
How would you describe the upturn in business travel?
Bertrand Poey - The recovery is good if we look at the overall IATA figures, we are at around 95% compared with 2019. For the French market airlines expect the number of seats stolen in October to be in line with the same period in 2019. This is also forecast for November and December. We are seeing the same dynamic inhotels with occupancy rates of 76% in July. This is 5 points higher than in North America, which generally posts the highest figures. There is a real European dynamic, after two years of fears, during which many predicted that the video-conferencing would replace travel. But the reality is that from September 2021we had a recovery very strong growth in business travelThis is particularly true of SMEs, which need to get out into the market and establish a presence with their customers and prospects. The year 2022 onwards has been full of ups and downs, between light confinements and reopenings. And what we have seen since the start of the year is a return to 90% or even 95 % of 2019 volumes. Admittedly, the recovery is fairly patchy, and average baskets are rising mainly as a result of increases. But overall, there has been a good recovery.
Looking beyond the figures, how has behaviour changed?
Bertrand Poey - In 2021-2022, we will see an explosion of Meetings & Events. Many large companies and medium-sized structures have launched into the teleworking. The only way to get employees to support a company project, or technological projects, is to bring them together. There has also been a change in the nature of the business traveller. Many employees who were used to telecommuting were used to living in major economic centres like Paris, Bordeaux or Lyon, have chosen to move to the provinces, or at least away from the major centres. As a result, the commuting. And while some thought that videoconferencing would kill off business travel, it has evolved into a form of travel that may be less frequent, but which lasts longer. Precisely because videoconferencing means you can go on a business trip to Bangalore, for example, and stay there for a fortnight, because with Teams we'll be able to make lots of videos with the United States, etc. So tools like Teams support business travel rather than hinder it.
The latest news from Amadeus concerns CDS: how does this partnership differ from the previous one?
Bertrand Poey - CDS is a fairly long-standing partner, with whom we have had two major tie-ups. The first partnership, concluded last year, concerned Amadeus Value Hotel, which was then integrated into CDS. This enabled us to showcase our content much more widely, thanks to CDS, a key player in the hotel distribution sector. One year on, this new acceleration is based on theintegration of CDS into Cytric and Cytric Easy. This enables CDS, via Cytric which is starting to become a very significant player in the business travel market in France and beyond, to be exposed to a large number of corporate customers.
Has Cytric benefited from the disappearance of a player like Traveldoo?
Bertrand Poey - Yes. If we look back at Cytric's history, it was the acquisition of a very good product developed in Germanymainly for German players. We realised that it's never easy to internationalise a product, so we made the courageous decision, over a two-year period, to invest to make sure that this product could be stable for all market players in Europe. From 2019, we saw an acceleration via partnerships with agencies but also directly with certain customers. And there has been a second acceleration in just over a year, with the announcement of Cytric Easy, partnerships with Microsoft and Accenture... So today there really is an acceleration in the market share of Cytric, which has become a major player.
What about the partnership with Microsoft? How is it evolving?
Bertrand Poey - It is a partnership that began in 2021 with Amadeus's wish to migrate to the cloudwhich was becoming essential. Microsoft is a major global player, and it was important to ensure a technological sustainability for our customers. In a second phase, we also pooled our resources with Microsoft 50/50 teams of development and product experts, to develop common ideas together. This is how Cytric Easy came to the table. We started from the premise that a business trip never begins in a hotel. SBT. It all starts upstream, by email or Teams, with a fairly informal exchange before a travel file is created. So, does it make sense to have to open another tool to plan the trip? So there's a total integration into the Microsoft 365 environment. Now we're going one step further, with the possibility of deconstruct an exchange in natural language to pre-populate a travel file We've also developed a system that allows us to plan flights and hotels in advance, according to the traveller's preferences. So we're moving to a higher level. And we have quite a few projects underway, both with Microsoft and Accenture, around artificial intelligence, but not only that.
When is this feature due to be launched?
Bertrand Poey - We're not announcing a production date yet, but it's already working in test mode. And it will be available very soon.
AI is now a must-have for all technological announcements. How can we tell the difference between real innovation and gadgetry?
Bertrand Poey - That's true. For theartificial intelligence as for the CSR for that matter. In both cases, these are issues that Amadeus has been investing in for years. Our Erding data centre, for example, has been carbon neutral since 2019. And we have integrated AI into our solutions for airlines and airports, if only to optimise passenger and freight loading, for example. I invite everyone to think about use cases. Over the last ten years or so, we have gone through a number of phases where technology has anticipated a certain number of needs that had not yet been expressed. Chat GPT is one of them. It's great, but in practical terms, the real question is: what do I do with it as a travel agent, a company, an airline or a rail company? Today, many players are talking about AI because others are doing it or claiming to be doing it, whereas it's often a question of algorithms. We also need to ask ourselves a ethical question on the use of AI. At Amadeus, we have a board that meets regularly and validates the fact that we are carrying out studies on the use cases for AI that we could develop. So we have a lot of ideas - nearly 180 are being studied at the moment. The big question is whether these applications will be useful to the community, and whether they will be ethical.
What needs have you identified?
Bertrand Poey - I'm not going to give everything away, but the first answer is natural language analysis, which is a huge step forward. There's also the subject of chatbots AI: travel agencies and companies are looking for solutions, and AI is bound to help develop or at least propagate chatbots that are truly relevant to everyone.
What about AI applied to CSR?
Bertrand Poey - Today, many labels are looking for the right way to calculate what a trip really represents in terms of CO2 emissions. And I think we've become much more relevant in the last five years. In our tools, for example, we include Chooose. What we can imagine is that, on the basis of data from these players, AI will make it possible to define future models for optimising travel. It's no longer just a question of measurement, it's a question of action and anticipation..
Can a travel giant like Amadeus now take the position that we should travel less?
Bertrand Poey - Our aim is not to replace the decision of the traveller or travel agent. On the other hand, and this is our CSR responsibility, our role is to provide all the information you need to make the right decision. On this point, I know that many people are concerned that AI could replace jobs. Where we are integrating AI, it is not to replace human reasoning, but to provide all the right information to make the best decision according to the criteria of the travel agent or the traveller.
Last but not least, where are we with the NDC dossier?
Bertrand Poey - Unfortunately, we still hear a lot of negative statements about the situation two years ago. But things have changed a lot, let's be honest. As far as NDC At Amadeus, we equip both airlines and retailers. So it's important to remember that, while some people are pitting GDS and NDCthat it's compatible. But I think it's starting to be better understood now. Amadeus distributes NDC content to 21 airlines in France and 23 worldwide. In two years, we've made a lot of progress on functionalities. Some people criticise the lack of after-sales service. I'm not going to comment on what other players are doing, but at Amadeus the after-sales functionalities are very much present. So today, for someone who wants to make an exchange or a refund, it's available on Amadeus. We also hear that it takes three times longer to make an NDC reservation. A huge number of improvements have been made, both by Amadeus and by the airlines, we have to be honest. With the Conseil consultatif des agences de voyages (CCAV), we have defined seven booking scenarios for leisure and business travel. We carried out measurements last year and we were on average at +30% of time. We recently repeated the measurements, and we are now at parity with EDIFACT. Response times have therefore improved very significantly.
