Cloud(s) on the horizon at the Amazon Web Services summit in Madrid

Over the last decade the travel industry has been at the forefront of digital innovation, positioning itself as an undisrupted leader in e-commerce. Companies that barely existed ten years ago, such as Uber or Airbnb, are now amongst the most talked about and fastest growing businesses in the world.

But industry trends suggest that there are still a great many further developments coming ahead. So, what’s next? More importantly, what should we all be doing to prepare for change?

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) our sector contributed to the world’s economy 7.6 trillion US dollars (or 10.2% of global GDP) in 2016. Travel has been an early adopter of digital technologies and recently cloud-based solutions have played an important role, increasingly replacing existing legacy systems and processes that are deemed no longer fit in the new digital era.

Cloud solutions provide travel companies with more scalability and flexibility, whilst reducing costs as they allow on demand and pay per use. This is especially important given the seasonality of our sector. But it is also relevant considering that the number of data requests grows exponentially as a result of continuous technological developments. 

Hotelbeds Group began its migration to the cloud a few years ago, thanks to a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). During the last two years the relationship has intensified as we have accelerated the migration of the company to the cloud and incorporated Software as a Service (SaaS) with suppliers such as WorkDay, Microsoft and Salesforce.

Last week our architecture director and cloud computing guru Santiago Pereira took to the stage at the AWS Summit in Madrid to talk about our experience and cloud migration plans for the future.

Talking about our learning and insights into AWS, Santiago explained how our partnership with Amazon helps us to innovate and deliver flexible and reliable solutions:  

“We are proud to say that we have transformed our platform to ensure that we offer all of our partners innovative solutions that help them to increase both volumes and margins. This is one of the most powerful IT ecosystems in the world’s travel industry, and even perhaps one of the most powerful in Spain.”

Nonetheless innovation means change and change is an endless story. And this applies to our business too.  No doubt cloud(s) will remain on the horizon of travel technology’s future for some time, but we’re keeping a close eye-out for any change in the weather conditions.