Amadeus to get better access to soaring outbound travel demand from China
Travel technology provider Amadeus hopes to crack the expanding mainland tourism sector using a new licence to operate there more freely
When Bart Tompkins escaped to Koh Samui in Thailand for a holiday break during China’s October “golden week” national holiday two years ago, he could barely believe what he saw.
At the resort he stayed in, almost one in every two people he met was with a mainland tour group, and the rest were expatriates who worked in China.
Tompkins, the managing director for China of Amadeus, the world’s leading provider of travel technology, said this was in stark contrast to his last visit to the island 24 years ago, when he did not see a single Chinese person for a month.
“China has changed a lot in the past five years,” the Beijing-based executive told the South China Morning Post. “A lot more are travelling out of the country individually and book hotels and air tickets online.
A lot more are travelling … individually and book hotels and air tickets online
“They are moving from traditional government-owned travel agencies to those owned by individual entrepreneurs who returned to the mainland from their education overseas.”
The growth of the mainland middle class and an easing of travel restrictions have fuelled a boom in outbound travel.