Amadeus Brings T&E Services To Asia

Amadeus has expanded its corporate travel and expense management solutions into Asia.

The company revealed this week that its Cytric Travel & Expense solution is now available to businesses in Asia, according to Amadeus Asia-Pacific President Albert Pozo. Amadeus highlighted the offering’s end-to-end capabilities, providing travel booking, duty of care, reinforcement of travel policy, expense reporting and reimbursement and other solutions as part of the corporate T&E process.

According to reports, launching Cytric in Asia enables businesses to access the company’s inventory of travel services without having to go to a third-party agent. Travel managers can allow employees to book their own business travel, while still remaining in line with corporate travel policy.

Reports added that Amadeus will also be introducing new services to its corporate clients already using Cytric, including integration with Microsoft Outlook to use email to book travel, as well as a calendar plugin for the email platform. Amadeus will also be looking to integrate Google’s voice assistant to support mobile travel booking.

Though unconfirmed, Amadeus is also reportedly exploring the addition of sharing economy services, like Uber and Airbnb, into its system.

Last week, another T&E firm, Concur, highlighted Airbnb’s expansion within the corporate travel space, finding that bookings at the service increased by 32 percent among corporations between 2015 and 2016. Uber, meanwhile, has now surpassed traditional taxis in its use by business travelers, Certify research has found. Both Airbnb and Uber offer business-targeted offerings.