Amadeus Gulf inaugurated its new Muscat office earlier this month.

Muscat Daily caught up with the company's managing director Graham Nicholas and asked him about its operations in the sultanate.

Nicholas who started his career with Exxon and grew through the ranks also talks about Amadeus Gulf's general offerings issues concerning the sector and his hopes for Oman's tourism market.

What are the services the company provides?

Amadeus is a leading provider of advanced technological solutions for the global travel industry; providing the technology which keeps the travel sector moving - from initial search to making a booking from pricing to ticketing from managing reservations to managing check-in and departure processes. Our products and solutions help to improve the business performance of our customers; travel agencies corporations airlines ground handlers hotels railways car rental companies airports cruise lines and ferry operators.

The Amadeus group employs around 10000 people worldwide across central sites in Madrid Spain (corporate headquarters) Nice France (development) and Erding Germany (operations) as well as 71 local Amadeus Commercial Organizations globally including in the Gulf.

What is your vision for the new Oman office?

We have had an office in Oman for some time and this is effectively the opening of a larger modern and more strategicoffice.

We have upgraded equipment and technical infrastructure to include a highly-advanced training centre. The office also features dedicated departments for sales customer support and operations. Brand new IT systems digital training displays and an innovative breakout zone come together to ensure a modern well-equipped and comfortable learning environment for Oman's modern travel professionals.

How is the Oman tourism market shaping up?

Oman is a highly competitive and crucial market for us. It is fast-growing shows a lot of potential and in this market the focus needs to be on differentiation. The advantage will go to organisations that are able to effectively use technology as a true competitive differentiator and it is these organisations that we seek to cater to and partner with.

Recent research by Amadeus shows that Oman is home to a very family-oriented traveller as 73 per cent of Omani travellers prefer to travel with family and friends. They are also premium travellers spending an average of US$4415 per head per regional trip and US$9090 per head per international trip.

Oman also stands alongside regional tourism heavyweights Dubai and Qatar in hotel and leisure facilities development. The nation is also at the forefront of shaping the regional cruise market which should bring in 1.6mn tourists to the region by 2020.

With the Oman government and the private sector working together to move the nation to the top of the regional rankings and placing it firmly on the global tourism map we look forward to aligning with the travel and tourism community in the Oman market for further success.

There are customers who prefer personal interactions to online transactions. How do you deal with this?

There is still widespread fear that online transactions are unsafe but this is becoming less of a worry even for service providers and regulators as technology advancement allows for super-secure fast and easy online transactions. With a young population and strong smartphone penetration we see that online transactions will only continue to increase.

As a leading player in our space we are at the forefront of enabling a secure online experience for our customers and in turn their customers as well.

However the traditional travel agency is not going away anytime soon so the live interaction that some travellers prefer will continue to be an option.

Our studies have shown that the typical GCC traveller books their travel through corporate travel agents (33 per cent) online travel agents (25 per cent) and traditional travel agencies (20 per cent). The rest book through travel service providers via phone or through family and friends (22 per cent).

Also we have one of the best-secured systems for online payments. I am confident that with information now easily available in smartphones and the increasing number of youngsters in the region the online business transaction will only increase. It is a time to gear up for online services and we are here to help our customers to understand the changes they need to make in order to capitalise on this growing opportunity.