A new online booking engine aimed at medium-sized leisure intermediaries is set to be unveiled by leading GDS Sabre Holdings.
TTE Preview: Sabre targets leisure agents with new online booking engine
A new online booking engine aimed at medium-sized leisure intermediaries is set to be unveiled by leading GDS Sabre Holdings.
The collaboration with Lancashire-based Billian IT Solutions builds on the online expertise within the Sabre group through its ownership of Travelocity and Lastminute.com and dealings with other OTAs.
The Sabre Web Bookings Engine has been developed through a similar partnership to the recently announced Travel Settlement Services technology being trialled in the UK with Conferma.
Harald Eisenaecher, EMEA senior vice president of Sabre Travel Network, said these sorts of partnerships signified the open network approach increasingly being taken by Sabre. The new Sabre App Store, said to be a first in the business-to-business arena, is set to open within weeks with an initial 50 to 60 apps on offer.
Eisenaecher said the new Sabre web engine would be costed to fit the budgets of mid-sized agencies looking to establish or improve their web presence.
“It’s not something we intend to make lots of money on, it’s part of our service product offering,” he said.
“This is another example of Sabre opening our systems to another partner to provide our customers with what they need. This will lend itself to medium-sized leisure agencies.“We see this is another piece of the puzzle to make us more competitive in the product and technology side.
“Agents are really looking for technology partners they can rely on, where product investment takes place and technology is being rolled out.”
Sabre said the Web Bookings Engine is, in effect, a bundling up of some of the technology it already has developed based predominantly around low fare shopping. Existing product, Bargain Finder Max, already powers many major global OTAs and the new Web Bookings Engine incorporates some of its capabilities.
Billian IT Solutions is exhibiting at this week’s Travel Technology Europe trade show at London’s Earl’s Court exhibition centre.Travolution as the media partner for TTE will be hosting a series of seminars in a dedicated theatre on both days.
