PROFILE
Saga Travel: its leadership, new mentality, and new tech partnership
Travolution peeped behind the curtain of Saga Travel’s recent success. Kate Harden-England reports
Saga Travel has been through waves of changes since the pandemic, when Titan Travel and Saga Holidays were still run separately. Since then, the group has been busy.
It appointed John Constable as CEO of Titan Travel, and went on to merge the operations of its two brands into one entity, Saga Travel Group. This, it says, was to allow them to work more óƖóçŨĒƂóĨƉǝŨĺĉóŨďóśǝƃďĒĨóǝśóįËĒİĒİĉǝ distinct brands to the consumer. For Constable, bringing together
the operations of the two brands ďËšǝŘśĺƂóíǝƂóśƉǝæóİóƛçĒËĨƿǝ “It was a real highlight to see the
ŨóËįǝƜĺŭśĒšďǝĒİǝŨďËŨǝóİƂĒśĺİįóİŨƺǝ continuing to grow the customer base, and seeing the teams believe that they can deliver growth opportunity for the segment,” he says.
RECOVERY CHALLENGES It wasn’t without its challenges, though. Constable adds: “We certainly had a pinch point. We had to navigate very quickly through some challenges with contact centres, and we did that in a number of ways, with our websites, online communication, and new contact centres as well, which we spun up to cope with demand. “But coming out of the pandemic was
a very challenging operational period.” The period of change at Saga with
ŨďóǝçĺįĒİĉǝŨĺĉóŨďóśǝĺĈǝŨƃĺǝíĒƖóśóİŨǝ sets of colleagues meant there was a need for them to be “brave and to innovate”, Constable says. A new mentality was key to the
PLATFORM SWITCH In 2023, Saga Travel set the wheels in motion to make the move to Sabre Corporation as its new connectivity partner, to power all its air content, while it is exploring hotel content too. Constable says: “Being an
We needed new
ŁŃĥëœåŏʼnǪ Ġíũ ũËůʼn ĥā ũĥŃęĊĠĂǪ Ġíũ ŏíåĈ ËĠë Ġíũ ŁŃĊåĊĠĂ ğíŏĈĥëʼn
ƛśšŨǝŘďËšóǝĺĈǝ ĺİšŨËæĨóǛšǝŨóİŭśóƺǝ as he says the business needed to change the way it thought about ƃďËŨǝĒŨǝƃËšǝĺƖóśĒİĉǝĒŨšǝçŭšŨĺįóśšƿ This spurred a new era for the
company. Constable says: “We needed new products, new ways of working, new technologies and new pricing methodologies”. The need to move away from
two reservation platforms, and two relationships at play, to a “seamless experience in one single platform” was pertinent for sustained operations.
organisation that had been going to multiple platforms to get content, ďËƂĒİĉǝËİǝĺƖóśĒİĉǝŨďËŨǝËçŨŭËĨĨƉǝĉËƂóǝŭšǝ a consolidated place to go for full- service, low-cost carriers and all the UK low-cost carriers that we needed, on one platform, meant it became a seamless operation for us driving productivity for our contact centre agents. “We really loved that Sabre were
excited about our segment. Our segment being not only individual travel, but group travel – something that comes with a number of frictions, particularly when you’re dealing with third parties or airlines and having to get messages across, with customers wanting to manage their bookings and do things with the airlines. “So, Sabre was really quite excited
about helping us give a better customer journey in that space. “If you take a business like ours on
Sabre, we’re heavily weighted towards British Airways but use all the low-cost carriers, and multiple ways of connecting
22 — OCTOBER 2024 —
TRAVOLUTION.COM
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