Collaboration is the key to progress: What the travel industry can learn from the International Space Station

May 16, 2024

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Dr. Wolfgang Krips

SVP Corporate Strategy, Amadeus

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New water purification technology; better environmental monitoring; improved natural disaster response; and new medical treatments for osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons, cancer, and heart disease. These are just some of the technological innovations developed on the International Space Station (ISS) thanks to cooperation between space agencies from the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia.

Individually, none of these countries could have built or sustained a permanent space station, but collectively, they’ve created an orbiting laboratory from which we can better understand space, physics, the human body, and our own planet for the betterment of humankind. It’s an incredible achievement, and one that was only possible thanks to global cooperation.

Amadeus has yet to send anyone to space – for now at least! – but much like the incredible space agencies responsible for the ISS, we know that the best path to innovation is collaboration. One would be hard pressed to travel internationally without the coordination of airlines, airports, baggage handlers, as well as all the travel agencies, hotels and transfer companies that welcome us before and after our trips to the airport. Even if we’re not going to space, travel is a global endeavour, and our industry can only progress if we stay connected and work together.

Amadeus technology plays an integral role in facilitating collaboration between all of the different stakeholders in the travel industry. So as the SVP of Corporate Strategy, I’m constantly wondering how we can do things better. How can we innovate to stay ahead of the curve? How can we make travel a more secure, personal, and joyful experience for everyone?

There are three obvious answers: we can build, buy, or partner our way to innovation.

The engineers and developers at Amadeus are incredibly talented and we’re constantly investing in research and development so they can experiment and make their ideas a reality. In 2024, Amadeus plans toincrease investment in technology by 14%.

But even with the brightest minds and a generous budget, there’s only so much we can do alone.

That’s why sometimes, we buy companies with big ideas whose expertise we think our global network of clients could benefit from. For example,we recently acquired Voxel , a Catalan company which specialises in electronic invoicing and B2B payment solutions for travel agencies, hotels and other industry players. We also just completed the acquisition ofVision-Box , a leading provider of biometric solutions for airports, airlines, and border control customers.

But some of our most ambitious initiatives and innovations were made possible thanks to partnerships with other players in the technology and travel space. One recent example is the new Amadeus Virtual Airport Operations Centre  (APOC) which airlines, airports, border control, and service providers to co-operate in afully digitalized airport operations center.

This new solution was developed by Amadeus as a Microsoft Teams app so users can benefit from Microsoft Azure Machine Learning to simulate and fine-tune the impact of potential plans. This partnership with Microsoft will make it easier for airline stakeholders to communicate, collaborate and take action more quickly during times of disruption.

This is just one example, but we’re constantly partnering with other companies both big and small to help us solve problems, find opportunities, and improve the travel experience. In 2021,we launched the Amadeus Partner Network , a company-wide partner program with the objective to create an ecosystem of niche partners who can innovate quickly and help reach the remote touch points of every traveler's journey.

Since then we’ve worked with Adobe to help airline marketersautomate unique customer experiences across all digital touchpoints , we integrated IBM’sdigital health pass  into the Amadeus Traveler ID  platform to speed up boarding during COVID, and we collaborated with Accenture and Microsoft to pilot agenerative AI travel assistant to help corporate travelers. We don’t work exclusively with big industry players either: ourOpen API platform is also making it easier for startups and maverick developers to connect with Amadeus APIs to develop their own innovations.

We’re dedicated to these partnerships because we know that when we work as an ecosystem and dismantle silos, everyone benefits. Hand in hand, we’re unlocking new business opportunities, accelerating time to market, and speeding up innovation. Travelers also benefit. Our collaborators share our commitment to customer-centricity, which is helping us develop tailored solutions that meet evolving traveler needs and preferences, fostering loyalty and driving repeat business.

From startups to big industry players, governments, and universities: everyone is welcome to help us redesign the travel of tomorrow. Progress and creativity flourishes when we share resources to bring ideas to life, and if we set our minds to it, we can address the big challenges that affect us all.

Just look at the International Space Station. If researchers from all sorts of different countries can make scientific discoveries thousands of kilometres away while orbiting our little planet, what’s stopping us from breaking new ground right here on earth? The sky is the limit when we work together.

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