Christophe Bousquet https://dev.traveldailymedia.com/tag/christophe-bousquet/ Informing, connecting and developing the world’s travel industry professionals. Tue, 20 Dec 2022 10:51:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 Sustainable travel takes center stage during Amadeus hackathon  https://dev.traveldailymedia.com/sustainable-travel-takes-center-stage-during-amadeus-hackathon/ Fri, 09 Dec 2022 07:07:45 +0000 https://www.traveldailymedia.com/?p=753610 The post Sustainable travel takes center stage during Amadeus hackathon  appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Brand TD.

Sustainability in travel was the focus of Amadeus’ worldwide hackathon, which saw more than 2,500 student registrants. The hackathon offered students an opportunity to code on a cloud native platform and compete for prizes.

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Sustainability in travel was the focus of Amadeus’ worldwide hackathon, which saw more than 2,500 student registrants. The hackathon offered students an opportunity to code on a cloud native platform and compete for prizes. These included internships with Amadeus and other industry partners.

The virtual event, held over the course of October, saw over 100 university students advance to participate in the final challenges related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Emission Offsetting and Green Hotels, among others.

A member of the team that won the ‘Sustainable Development Challenge’ and recent computer science graduate from the Netherlands, Kimberly Dijkmans, said: “I really enjoyed participating in this hackathon and I discovered a lot about sustainability in travel. The topic is very important to me personally – so the lessons I gained from this hackathon will go a long way towards my future career decisions. I also had an opportunity to work with a diverse group of people from around the world and am happy to have made new friends who are passionate about the same subject. I also feel my coding skills improved: I learned Java at university – but through this hackathon – I developed new skills. I used Figma for the first time to create a prototype and React to create a web app. We also worked on GitHub as a team – which was new for me. The feeling of being part of a community was great. Amadeus did a lot to make us all feel involved – we had webinars, mentor sessions, and the Work Adventure platform created a sense of togetherness.”

Dijkmans’ team developed ‘FlyLight’, an app that rewards travelers when the weight of their luggage remains below an airlines’ luggage allowance. This helps airlines reduce the amount of fuel they need for certain flights.

During the two weeks, participants received insights and support from leaders of some of the biggest players in the travel and tech industries, including representatives from Air France-KLM, Etihad Airways, Microsoft, Red Hat, MongoDB, CHOOOSE, Woosmap, Airbus, American Airlines, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Saving the Amazon and others. The students also enjoyed a fun coding platform, a virtual DJ, yoga sessions, and interactions with talented mentors.

Christophe Bousquet, chief technology officer, Amadeus, said: “My congratulations to all of the student winners of our worldwide hackathon. The actions we take today to make travel more sustainable could have a profound impact on how the future looks. This hackathon was about empowering the next generation of coders to make a difference. We view sustainability and humanity’s response to climate change as one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime. As such, this hackathon was a prime opportunity to reflect on the way travel and coding can deliver a positive environmental and social impact. The entire travel industry must put its best minds together to come up with the innovative solutions required to create a better future.”

The event offered Amadeus the opportunity to engage with new talent who share an interest to make travel more sustainable.

As an important global player in the travel industry with the ability to drive sustainability through technology, Amadeus has both a responsibility and an opportunity to be a catalyst for positive change. Against this background, the company’s environmental sustainability strategy focuses especially on three main pillars: reducing Amadeus own impacts; supporting Amadeus customers by providing solutions that help mitigate their environmental impact and collaborate with key industry stakeholders to drive change collectively through a variety of initiatives.

Congratulations to all the winners:

  • Inspiration phase challenge winner: PlanIT, an app to plan trips and minimize carbon footprint at every step along the way with eco-friendly suggestions
  • Carbon offset challenge winner: Eco Motion, a mobile application used to compute multi-modal itineraries and compare them based on time, cost, and information like CO2 consumption
  • Green hotel challenge winner: Sustainable Hotel Booking, provides a selection of hotels using metrics such as distance, transport type, type of area, cost, and space
  • Sustainable development challenge winner: FlyLight, an app that rewards travelers when the weight of their luggage remains below an airlines’ luggage allowance
  • Open data challenge winner: Lug Lite by the sustainable developer, a mobile application to help reduce the amount of baggage checked in by passengers
  • AF/KLM cargo/maintenance challenge winner: 5+2=5, a solution that reduces the time to compute the right location of pallets and containers
  • Etihad Airways green development challenge winner: Smart CPM Parser & Sustainable Message Processor, a smart parser app for Etihad Airways cargo messages, allowing cargo flights to be more accurately planned, and potentially more fuel-efficient
  • Microsoft business travel challenge winner: B.R.A.S.R.- Bitmasking Recursive Scheduling and Routing, a customised approach for commercial vehicular route optimisation to reduce carbon emissions

Delighted with the outcome of the hackathon, Mani Ganeshan, global head of engineering (r&d) for travel distribution and centre head, Amadeus Labs said: “Building a sustainable path within the travel industry can become a major challenge, with less to be achieved in isolation. 1Hack4Sustainability is an innovative approach that brings people and technology together to ensure that global travel can grow responsibly and create a positive community impact. We congratulate everyone who participated in the hackathon to build sustainable solutions that will enable businesses to meet their present requirements without jeopardizing the industry’s long-term prosperity.

The hackathon also allowed us to draw attention to sustainable travel while encouraging future leaders and providing them with a direction to sustainable travel industry. Sustainability is a journey rather than a destination, and consistent improvement is essential for continuous progress on the industry’s environmental goals. Through these initiatives, we continue to invest in the young minds of the country facilitating the opportunity to unitedly create a greener, more sustainable world.”

 

 

 

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93% of Indian travellers ready to adopt ‘digital health passports’ to restart travel https://dev.traveldailymedia.com/93-of-indian-travellers-ready-to-adopt-digital-health-passports-to-restart-travel/ Thu, 08 Apr 2021 05:24:09 +0000 https://www.traveldailymedia.com/?p=640788 The post 93% of Indian travellers ready to adopt ‘digital health passports’ to restart travel appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Brand TD.

As governments and the travel industry explore the benefits of digital health passports, the message from Indian travellers is clear: digital health passports can be a vital tool in opening up travel once again

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As governments and the travel industry explore the benefits of digital health passports, the message from Indian travellers is clear: digital health passports can be a vital tool in opening up travel once again. The study, commissioned by Amadeus and delivered by Censuswide, found that 93% of Indian travellers would be comfortable using a digital health passport for future trips, as the appetite to travel remains high with nearly half (47%) expressing their interest in booking international travel within six weeks once the restrictions are lifted.

The study further revealed that over the past three quarters, 79% of Indian travelers would be willing to store their travel health data electronically if it meant it will enable them to travel sooner, and if it enabled them to pass through the airport faster with less face-to-face interactions with others.

The international study that included over 1,000 respondents from India, indicates that there is enough incentive for authorities and businesses to accelerate plans for digital health passports. In fact, 57% stated that they would be happy for a digital health passport to become the norm.

Despite an overwhelming response to digital health passports, when queried further, there are concerns about security and privacy such as:

  • 34% of respondents are worried about data security risks with their personal information being hacked
  • 28% of respondents are concerned about lack of transparency and control over how and where their data will be shared.

Surprisingly, the highest scepticism around digital health passports was reported among Gen Z, with 12% saying that they would not be comfortable using a digital health passport under any circumstances.

The travel industry needs to consider and explore the checks and balances to ease privacy concerns and build traveller confidence in digital health passports, to which the survey found that:

  • Over half of Indian travellers (53%) would be comfortable using a digital passport if it was accepted by most countries and was regulated as per international standards,
  • 8 out of 10 (80%) would be more likely to store health data on a secured app where a travel provider has partnered with a trusted healthcare provider.

Even though receptiveness to sharing data is high, when asked about the technologies that would increase confidence in travel in the next 12 months, mobile solutions were highlighted as a popular option, with suggestions that include:

  • Mobile applications that provide on-trip notifications and alerts (51%)
  • Contactless mobile payments (49%)
  • Facial recognition technology (48%)
  • Boarding pass on mobile (47%)

Mani Ganeshan, head of research and development in APAC at Amadeus, says: “As businesses navigate out of the global pandemic, the future of travel looks optimistic. This study offers a clear roadmap for the industry, by acknowledging the appetite for technologies that can address the concerns of travellers, whether it is better access to information or reducing physical proximity. Innovations such as digital health passports can catalyse both traveller confidence and the opening of international borders once again. With the world racing towards digital transformation unlike ever before, sophisticated travel-friendly apps will help build the much-needed confidence for travellers both worldwide and in India.”

Christophe Bousquet, CTO of Amadeus, comments: “This study reinforces the key role that technology will play in rebuilding travel. We’ve seen a shift since our last survey, as travellers now place more focus on mobile and touchless technology, crucial areas that will clearly strengthen traveller confidence. It’s also very relevant to see that travelers are open to digital health passports and sharing their data as they move through the journey, once the right safeguards are in place. At Amadeus, we’re committed to rebuilding a better industry, together with our customers and partners.”

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Amadeus snaps up Optym https://dev.traveldailymedia.com/amadeus-snaps-up-optym/ Tue, 04 Feb 2020 01:54:54 +0000 https://www.traveldailymedia.com/?p=535108 The post Amadeus snaps up Optym appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Brand TD.

Amadeus has today announced its acquisition of the airline network planning software business Optym. The acquisition builds on a 3-year partnership between Amadeus and Optym that has seen the successful delivery of solutions to Southwest, Easyjet and LATAM airlines. Airline scheduling is highly complex, with billions of data points and ever-changing external conditions to take into consideration. […]

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Amadeus has today announced its acquisition of the airline network planning software business Optym. The acquisition builds on a 3-year partnership between Amadeus and Optym that has seen the successful delivery of solutions to Southwest, Easyjet and LATAM airlines.

Airline scheduling is highly complex, with billions of data points and ever-changing external conditions to take into consideration. For those airlines able to successfully optimize their schedules, the result can mean improved customer satisfaction and an estimated capture of 1-3% of annual revenue – billions of dollars across the whole industry.

Christophe Bousquet

As a result of this transaction, 90 employees will be dedicated to the Amadeus Sky Suite. The group is led by Renzo Vaccari, who held a similar role at Optym, and is focused on a smooth transition. These employees join the Airlines R&D unit, reporting to Christophe Bousquet, senior vice president, Airlines R&D, and the Amadeus Sky Suite are part of Amadeus’ Airlines Offer Suite of solutions.

“We believe that better airline network planning presents a significant opportunity for airlines to drive more profit and reliability. Today’s systems only scratch the surface of what is possible,” said Bousquet. “This acquisition accelerates our vision of offering a modern, next-generation airline network planning system. We are focused on more fully integrating this solution in the airline ecosystem and operating it at scale, building on the momentum of Amadeus and Optym’s strong, multi-year partnership.”

“Optym’s expertise in world-class decision support technologies and optimization intelligence and Amadeus’s broad product portfolio, technical expertise and global reach have complemented each other with leading airlines around the world,” said Vaccari. “We are excited to join Amadeus to reinvent the future of airline network planning and scheduling. We believe airlines of all sizes and types, in all regions, can optimize their schedules and increase network profitability with our breakthrough technology.”

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Aviation technology Christophe Bousquet Amadeus Christophe Bousquet
May the best ideas win: It’s time to break down silos to create better journeys https://dev.traveldailymedia.com/may-the-best-ideas-win-its-time-to-break-down-silos-to-create-better-journeys/ Fri, 06 Dec 2019 04:15:46 +0000 https://www.traveldailymedia.com/?p=529461 The post May the best ideas win: It’s time to break down silos to create better journeys appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Brand TD.

Remember when online shopping still made us nervous? When online dating seemed outlandish at best and dangerous at worse? Or how normal it was to walk to a rental store to watch a movie? Fast forward just 20 years, and Amazon is the world’s largest retailer, 40% of new couples met online in 2019, and […]

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The post May the best ideas win: It’s time to break down silos to create better journeys appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Brand TD.

Remember when online shopping still made us nervous? When online dating seemed outlandish at best and dangerous at worse? Or how normal it was to walk to a rental store to watch a movie?

Fast forward just 20 years, and Amazon is the world’s largest retailer, 40% of new couples met online in 2019, and most teenagers probably don’t even know what a VHS tape is. Even though we’re always talking about digital transformation, it’s easy to forget how radically our lives have changed in recent years, writes Christophe Bousquet, senior vice president of Airlines R&D at Amadeus.

 

That’s why I’m such an optimist when it comes to the travel industry. Just as Amazon disrupted retail with big data, and Netflix transformed the entertainment industry with on-demand, personalised access to content, I’m confident that the aviation industry is in the midst of a transformative change. The foundation of this change isn’t just technology, it’s a pioneering approach to collaboration.

Travel has historically been siloed – each stage of a journey taking place distinctly from the other. With access to Cloud technology and Open APIs, Amadeus is bringing together disparate players and competitors to radically shake up the travel industry and the way we work together.

“Amadeus is choosing to put itself in competition with its own ecosystem”

With open APIs, different players within the industry can build on each other’s technology to develop solutions which benefit travellers. Amadeus is pioneering this with the Amadeus Airline Platform, which gives other companies and even competitors the opportunity to build on our technology and create airline solutions. This gives airlines the freedom and flexibility to grow with whichever partners and providers they prefer – whether that’s Amadeus or not.

In other words, Amadeus is choosing to put itself in competition with its own ecosystem. Because at the end of the day, the industry will only benefit if the best ideas come to fruition, and that requires open access to information for all.

That sounds nice in theory, but what does it look like in practice?

Take booking for example. At a customer forum in 2018, airlines said they needed an application that would allow travellers to compare multiple flights without leaving their website. They wanted to build loyalty, drive the travel experience, and combat competition from third-party price-comparing travel sites. We knew we needed to build something that could boost conversions, lower customer acquisition costs and unlock more upsell and cross-sell opportunities for airlines. So Amadeus turned to a long-time partner, Celerity, and put our experts to work.

With Celerity’s advanced technology, agile development skills, and established industry expertise, we developed a solution that allows travellers to compare prices in the same window, save and share itineraries, receive alerts, view and buy added services, and evaluate all options without ever leaving an airline website.

And when we talk about rapid innovation, we mean it. In the span of just six weeks, we went from idea to proof of concept. Avia Flight Compare (above) is now available to Amadeus Airline Digital customers.

Part of what made such a rapid turnaround possible is the strategy behind the Amadeus Airline Platform. It’s essentially an open marketplace for airlines to access custom branded apps built by Amadeus partners like Celerity, accelerating innovation and decreasing time to value.

Another example is disruption management. In June 2019, Salesforce and the Amadeus Airline Platform partnered to give airlines the ability to develop a truly personalised relationship with their customers throughout their trip. For travellers, this means a disrupted journey can be handled with SMS flight delay alerts, messaging and conversational bots, as well as ensuring that call centre staff and even the cabin crew know what’s going on and have access to relevant data, to make the best decisions in real-time. There’s nothing more stressful than a disrupted flight. Anything we can do to make that experience better for travellers and easier for airlines to manage should take first priority.

“We’ve hosted hackathons with 30 airlines”

But big players like Salesforce aren’t the only ones with bright ideas.  That’s why we’ve also created a ‘Self-service API’ within our platform, to give smaller independent developers and start-ups the ability to build on Amadeus technology to create their own solutions. We are very much aware that the next big idea in travel is as likely to come from within as it is to come from without. A big part of our innovation activity is to look outward and to do everything we can to help the best and brightest ideas bubble up to the surface.

One of the ways we do this is through hosting hackathons, where developers and technical experts from airlines, start-ups and other third parties come together to find solutions to problems that airlines are experiencing. During the hackathons, the teams use our existing platform technology and look at integrating that further with outside tech to build new capabilities. We’ve hosted hackathons with 30 airlines since the platform was first launched where airlines have come up with impressive prototypes.

For example, in April this year, Korean Airlines demonstrated a chatbot ‘Chat & Book’ with the ability to integrate airline bookings into chat rooms created by a group of friends. This chatbot helps the group complete their entire booking, from inspiration to payment, within the chat platform.

The 4th edition of the Amadeus Hack the Journey! travel hackathon: London, November 2019

And finally, we can’t forget Amadeus’ commitment to industry simplification programs such as ONE Order and NDC, which are bringing more simplicity and agility as the travel industry moves towards retail-driven systems. Amadeus has been working side by side with airlines, travel sellers, and industry players such as IATA in order to help develop these standards and implement them across the industry.

“Nobody benefits from a siloed approach to innovation”

Whether we’re working on the booking process, disruption management or innovation, one of our guiding philosophies is that if we help everyone work together more easily, with all of the tools and information they need at their disposal, radical change and innovation is bound to happen.

You might think we’re crazy to embrace a strategy that could empower our competitors. But I think we would be crazy not to. Nobody benefits from a siloed approach to innovation. We are confident in our technology, and we are committed to our mission. If travellers are going to benefit from a new, more streamlined and personalised travel experience, we need the world’s best minds on the case.

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May the best ideas win: It’s time to break down silos to create better journeys Remember when online shopping still made us nervous? When online dating seemed outlandish at best and dangerous at worse? Or how normal it was to walk to a rental store to watch a movie? Fast forward just 20 years, and Amazon is the world’s largest retailer, 40% of new couples met online in 2019, an Amadeus,Christophe Bousquet,Celerity partners Christophe Bousquet Amadeus Christophe Bousquet Amadeus Hacakthon Nov 21 2019 London The fourth edition of the Amadeus Hack the Journey! travel hackathon brought 108 developers and innovators to the heart of London
Simple, Agile and Open: Amadeus’ SVP of Airlines R&D opens up about new philosophy https://dev.traveldailymedia.com/simple-agile-and-open-amadeus-svp-of-airlines-rd-opens-up-about-new-philosophy/ Thu, 11 Jul 2019 01:30:51 +0000 https://www.traveldailymedia.com/?p=511172 The post Simple, Agile and Open: Amadeus’ SVP of Airlines R&D opens up about new philosophy appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Brand TD.

A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to be invited to spend a few days in Istanbul, a sultry and seductive city if ever there was one, at the pleasure of airline ‘techsperts’ Amadeus who were hosting the Amadeus Executive Summit 2019 (AES). There were three major themes at play during AES […]

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Istanbul. Sultry and seductive.

A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to be invited to spend a few days in Istanbul, a sultry and seductive city if ever there was one, at the pleasure of airline ‘techsperts’ Amadeus who were hosting the Amadeus Executive Summit 2019 (AES).

There were three major themes at play during AES 2019, success in retailing, innovation through partnerships and seamless traveller journeys all against the backdrop of Amadeus new philosophy; been distilled into three words – ‘Simple, Agile and Open’.

Intrigued by the concept I tracked down Christophe Bousquet, Amadeus’ SVP of Airlines R&D to learn about the inception of the idea and what simple agile and open actually means for Amadeus and its partners.



TD: So Christophe, ‘Simple, Agile and Open’, what’s that all about?

CB: I don’t know whether you had the occasion to attend the presentation this morning, but what I was presenting is a move towards transformation along three main axes. Simple, agile and open.

Simple meaning two things basically, first simplifying the industry – the industry was created a long time ago but if we knew 20, 30 years ago what we know now things would obviously be done very differently. And simplifying the travel journey — so basically making the life for travellers as easy as possible.

“Clear, well documented API’s”

Second we have ‘Agile. More and more we see that our customers want speed, they want things to be delivered quickly but still with quality and that’s always the difficulty to be as good as before but faster. For our customers that means a shorter cycle when delivering software and giving value earlier than we have in the past.

The third thing is ‘Open’, which means opening our environment. There are a few definitions of an open platform in IT but basically it means, clear, well documented API’s — and the ability for third parties to develop solutions on top of our solutions.

Why have you switched to that model?

Well we don’t do that for the sake of being simple. We do that in order to be in a position to deliver better software, which is easier to develop and will enable an airline to increase its revenue by selling better and by selling at the right price, as well as selling ancillaries developed by third parties.

“When we take on a commitment, we deliver it”

So when you came up with these three prongs of attack, was this the way you were working anyway but decided to give it a name to encapsulate the culture or was it totally new?

That’s a very good question. This actually came out from brainstorming. We were looking more at what we know are certain things that customer love. They love the fact that when we take on a commitment, we deliver it.

However we also want to improve, you know like any other company in the world, so we were looking at where we can perform better. For example, ‘Simple’, sometimes we are seen as complex –that’s not just us to be honest with you, it’s the whole industry– so that’s how that came about.

Agile. Again sometimes we were in a position where we want to get the value earlier. This is not specific to the travel industry but all of IT where everybody wants the value delivered more swiftly.

When it came to ‘Open’, [we decided] you have to be a bit less protective and that you have to allow for third parties. Why do you allow third parties? Typically, because one goes with the other, if we have a platform which is open and we have third parties that have developed solutions on top of this platform — that means two things. One, there will be an existing solution beyond the Amadeus software that will be proposed to our customer when they join our platform.

“We have to be good and we have to be relevant”

Moreover, it also means that don’t need necessarily to work with us, when they want to handle the products, they can also work with these third parties. This also gives them speed in delivery because they can choose to work with their own IT people or even with a local company.

So the idea was really to identify where we are good, make sure that we are still good at it and let’s try to improve where we think that our customers are expecting us to improve.

Have there been any surprises along the way?

Something which is interesting is that we are now choosing to put ourselves in competition with our own ecosystem. Typically, an airline would have the choice sometimes to say, “Okay, I’m going to use the digital platform for menus”. But, the UI itself can be developed by Amadeus or it can be developed by another company [on the Amadeus open platform). This means that if we want to continue providing Amadeus’ services we have to be good and we have to be relevant. So we’re not the choice by default. We’re the choice because we have been chosen.

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Simple, Agile and Open: Amadeus' SVP of Airlines R&D opens up about new philosophy A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to be invited to spend a few days in Istanbul, a sultry and seductive city if ever there was one, at the pleasure of airline ‘techsperts’ Amadeus who were hosting the Amadeus Executive Summit 2019 (AES). There were three major themes at play during AES 20 Amadeus,Christophe Bousquet Istanbul Christophe Bousquet Amadeus Christophe Bousquet