Mark Frary headed to Sabre's headquarters in Dallas and asked its chief executive what travel buyers should expect next
SABRE’S BELIEF that mobile is the future for travel was much in evidence. Chief executive Sam Gilliland said: “If we look out a few years, we will transition from what has been primarily focused on a desktop perspective to mobile devices. We are investing heavily in ensuring capabilities work well for this.” At the heart of this
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development will be its mobile tool, Tripcase. The company used the press conference to reveal how it would integrate features of its travel planning tool Virtually There, the Get There corporate booking tool and existing Tripcase trip management functionality into a single mobile experience for travellers.
“Tripcase will be the first
consumer mobile and web solution that integrates with the systems and policies used by travel agencies, travel management companies
“A few years ago, there were 30 transactions for each ticket – now it’s over 300”
(TMCs) and corporations,” said John Samuel of Sabre’s Traveler Solutions group.
CORPORATE CONSUMERS As a result, corporate online booking tools are going to start looking more like consumer- facing travel websites, said
Get There’s Suzanne Neufang. “Travellers are asking why they can’t book business trips directly on the internet, and they’re saying they like sites such as Kayak, Expedia and Lastminute.” Paul Wiley, Get
There’s head of product strategy, added: “That is where we are coming in and
doing usability testing – not against how we were in the past, but against the leading travel solutions in the world.” Speaking to the conference,
Sabre Holdings president Tom Klein revealed that travel companies were having to become more efficient because of the increased amount of
shopping around by travellers. “A few years ago, we were seeing 30 transactions [calls on Sabre’s systems] for each ticket. It is now over 300,” he said. Greg Webb is president of
Sabre Travel Network, the company’s division focused on agencies. He said, looking ahead, productivity gains for TMCs are going to come from allowing “some decisions to be traveller-led without the travel agency being involved in the transaction”. Webb added that Sabre’s
recent success among TMCs in Europe had not been as a result of buying business, saying agency incentives are “growing but not at the rate they have been for a while”. “I think Sabre has a product and service premium – better products and better customer service. We were never the incentive leader and we don’t think that is why an agency should participate,” he said. Meanwhile, airlines are
looking much more closely at the true lifetime value of customers, the gathered journalists were told. Robert Wiseman, Sabre’s chief technology officer, said the company was looking at tracking the value scores of travellers. “At Delta, we found that Gold tier members of their frequent