For most travel agencies, running Amadeus, Navitas and the rest of the booking stack on hosted desktops (Remote Desktop Services) is the right choice. It gives every consultant, in any office, at home or overseas, the same fast, secure, centrally managed environment, keeps sensitive data off individual machines, and makes the whole estate far easier to support and protect. Delivered as managed IT, this usually costs about £45 to £100 per user per month.
As agencies grow, add offices and let people work from anywhere, the old model of installing booking software on each individual PC stops scaling. Hosted desktops solve that. Here is why they suit a travel desk, and what to weigh up.
One consistent environment for everyone
With hosted desktops, Amadeus, Navitas and your back office live in one central environment that staff connect into, so everyone gets the same version, the same speed and the same setup whether they are at head office or in another country. That consistency removes the it-works-on-my-machine problems that plague software installed device by device.
Secure by design
Because the applications and data stay central rather than on each laptop, hosted desktops are inherently more secure: data is not scattered across devices that can be lost or stolen, access is gated by multi-factor authentication, and you can restrict which devices are even allowed to connect. For a business handling payments and sensitive client data, that central control matters.
Easier to support and update
Updating booking software, applying patches or rolling out a change is done once, centrally, rather than visiting dozens of machines around the world. When a consultant has a problem, support can see and fix the same environment everyone uses, which means faster resolutions and far less time lost to inconsistent setups.
Built for remote and overseas work
Hosted desktops are ideal for a distributed travel team: a consultant signs in from home, an overseas office or while travelling and gets the full, fast booking environment over the internet, without booking software ever being installed on a personal device. This is exactly how a modern, global desk should work.
What to weigh up
Hosted desktops depend on a good internet connection, so resilient connectivity at each site matters, and the environment needs to be properly sized and managed to stay fast. These are straightforward for a capable provider to handle, and the trade-off, central control and consistency, is well worth it for a travel business.
Getting the most from them
The best results come from delivering the booking apps well within the hosted environment, for example running Amadeus and Navitas through a properly configured browser on the session hosts, using profile management so logins are quick, and keeping the platform patched and monitored. Done right, the experience is fast and smooth for the consultant, who simply sees their tools working.
What to ask a provider
A specialist for travel agencies should be able to answer:
- Have you supported travel agencies, hosted desktops and systems like Amadeus, Navitas, FareXpert or TRAMS before?
- How do you give office, remote and overseas staff secure, reliable access in any time zone?
- How do you protect us from invoice, supplier and crew payment fraud, and help with PCI DSS?
- What is your response time when a booking or payment is at risk, out of hours?
- Is the price clear and per user, with security included rather than charged separately?
What good IT means for a travel agency
For a travel agency, good IT is mostly invisible. Consultants reach their booking systems quickly and securely from any office or country, the specialist software they rely on stays fast and available, payments go where they should, and travellers get answers whatever the hour. The desk keeps running and the technology stops being something anyone has to think about.
That reliability is the result of a setup built and maintained for how a travel business actually works, rather than a generic contract. For an operation that runs long hours, handles money and depends on a few specialist systems, a predictable per-user cost for that dependability is far cheaper than the downtime, fraud or lost productivity that a patched-together setup eventually causes.
Why travel agencies choose First Stop IT
First Stop IT has supported businesses since 2002, including travel agencies and travel management companies, and we understand the systems a travel desk runs on: Amadeus, Navitas, FareXpert and TRAMS, delivered securely over hosted desktops, alongside Microsoft 365. We support travel businesses based in Essex, Hertfordshire and London with teams working worldwide. Our credentials include:
- Cyber Essentials Certified
- IASME Cyber Assurance (Gold)
- NCSC Assured Service Provider (Cyber Advisor for Cyber Essentials)
- Microsoft Partner
- Crown Commercial Service Supplier (G-Cloud)
- Quality Principles Certified
We look after more than 2,000 endpoints across 50 companies, we have been named a Top 50 UK MSP for three years running, and we support organisations with 10 to 100 employees across Essex, Hertfordshire and London, including teams working internationally.
Book a free IT and cyber security review
Want your booking systems running fast and reliably for the whole team? Book a free IT and cyber security review with First Stop IT.