Amadeus chimes in on hotel messaging trend with Zingle tie-up

Amadeus has unveiled a partnership with mobile messaging specialist Zingle to enable hotel guests and staff to interact.

It's an interesting tie-up in a busy market with a number of travel and hospitality startups in the game as well as more generic messaging services such as Whatsapp and WeChat being used.

Booking.com is probably the most high-profile player to jump on the hotel messaging bandwagon recently.

The tie-up between Amadeus and Zingle will enable hotels that use Amadeus 'service optimization products' to message guests via any mobile channel.

Staff can manage innteractions with guests from one inbox which is shared across all departments.

According to Darren Hirsowitz, director of finance and business analytics for the Breakers, a resort in Florida's Palm Beach, management is seeing between 40 and 100 texts a day from guests.

He adds that using the technology means guests can communicate with the hotel on their "terms" and that the service adds to the overall experience for guests.

Messaging services such as this also mean guests no longer have to download individual apps, they just send a text requesting what they need.

Zingle already has a preferred messaging service partnership with Hyatt Hotels while Starwood has been using Whatspp for about a year and Marriott has been extending the use of its Mobile Request Service to additional properties.

For Amadeus, the partnership is noteworthy as it continues to build out its hotel services proposition.

The distribution giant has been steadily buying up hotel technology companies as it deepens its presence in the hospitality space.

Just over a year ago it revealed it had signed a deal to develop a hotel reservations platform for InterContinental Hotels Group.