In Search of a Perfect Pairing
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Pairing a good wine with my meal is a personal passion. As such, I am always on the lookout for new and upcoming wines in the region to add a new dimension and flavour to a meal. I recently visited Australia and of course, I made my way to the vineyards.
It was great to visit established wineries such as Houghtons, but “Ugly Duckling Wines” – a small, family owned vineyard along the river – also caught my eye and thoroughly impressed me. This boutique vineyard and cellar door prides itself in offering premium wines, all hand-picked and locally crafted, coupled with an old-fashioned personal touch. They really understand what their customers want. I just had to buy a case.
Similarly, at Amadeus, while we pride our partnerships with established players, we are always on the lookout for up-and-coming, smart and innovative companies and start-ups. In fact, we recently wrapped up a successful event: Bangkok Startup Weekend 2015: Travel Edition, powered by Amadeus, together with Techsauce, a Bangkok-based technology start-up organisation.
This is just one of the initiatives from Amadeus NEXT, a programme to nurture, mentor and partner with travel start-ups in Asia Pacific. The programme leverages Amadeus’ technology, expertise, reach and funding to evolve new and original ideas in travel.
During the Bangkok Startup Weekend, we saw participation from over 55 developers, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts, passionate about marrying technology and travel. I was blown away by the sheer energy and passion in the room, as well as some of the fantastic and original perspectives to improve the travel experience, ideas which could ultimately revolutionise travel.
Amadeus equipped participants with industry expertise and coaching from in-house experts as well as access to the Amadeus Travel Innovation Sandbox, a set of APIs to access Amadeus content for testing and prototyping. Sometimes, much like how pairing the right wine with a meal enhances the outcome, our partnership with these communities and groups lends a different perspective and drives a positive outcome for the travel ecosystem.
Travel and technology are two of the fastest moving industries that exist today and we know that fresh, innovative and often disruptive ideas are constantly being generated from start-ups across the region.
Personally I was very excited to support this event and be able to listen to, learn from and work with talented individuals, and together envisage innovative ideas that could potentially revolutionise our industry.
I’m also proud to work for a company that’s not just a leader in travel IT, but also focused on helping to support new ventures and start-ups in the travel industry. We put our money where our mouth is and in 2014 we spent EUR527 million on R&D, representing almost 16% of our global revenues – and since 2004 we’ve invested around EUR3.5 billion in R&D and innovation.
We strive to shape the future of travel by working with exceptional teams who have brilliant minds and excellent business ideas. This is only the beginning.
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