Developing Technology to Propel Tourism: Sabre

Tourism is one of the largest industries that span the globe, consisting of hotels, airlines, resorts, and so on. Millions of people from dozens of countries travel to numerous places each year. Whether it is for a vacation or for an official visit, one company has made numerous strides into the development of the underlying technology that powers global tourism.

Sabre is a leading technology solutions provider to the nearly US$8 trillion travel industry. The company’s technology and data-driven solutions help its airline; hotel and travel agency customers grow their businesses and transform the traveler experience. The scale, breadth, and depth of technology are unmatched and sustain a complex industry. Sabre is a technology solutions provider to the global travel and tourism industry offering a broad range of technology solutions including data-driven business intelligence, mobile, distribution and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions that are used by travel suppliers (airlines, hotels, car rental outlets, railways, cruise lines and tour operators) and travel buyers (travel agencies, travel management companies and corporate travel departments) to plan, market, sell, serve and operate their businesses.

Here’s a look at Sabre’s suite of business solutions

Airline Solutions

Sabre’s consistent innovations provide the airline industry with future-focused IT solutions — from powerful applications and SaaS delivery to high-performance environments that support airlines around the world. The company continually strives to develop and bring to market new, cutting-edge innovations and was the first to introduce passenger-reservations and revenue-management systems, consumer travel, a corporate booking tool, low-fare search capabilities.

Sabre continually invests in its technology to see its clients’ business well into the future. Its unique solutions are open, flexible, intelligent and scalable, ensuring that they adapt as business needs change and operations grow.

Sabre’s technology is designed to help airline thrive. Its solutions portfolio is extensive, covering clients’ end-to-end operation, and it spans every area of aviation across the globe with:

• More than 225 airline partners around the world
• Nearly 790 million passengers boarded each year
• More than 1,500 airports using Sabre’s departure-control technology
• More than 35 million flights tracked per year.

The company’s data-rich software helps its clients make smarter operational decisions, personalize and retail their products and services to travelers and distribute product offerings through direct and indirect channels and fulfill them to ensure that customers receive a superior experience.

Hospitality Solutions

Sabre Hospitality Solutions provides distribution, operations and marketing solutions to the hotel industry. Delivered primarily through a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, the Hospitality Solutions suite is used by more than 32,000 properties around the world. Its integrated reservations systems, property management system, distribution, and marketing services help hotels increase revenues, identify savings, and improve customer service.

Sabre offers distribution to various channels using the SynXis Central Reservation System and the Sabre global distribution system. Additionally, its solutions include hotel operations management through the Sabre Property Management System, a Web-based system for hotels to manage inventory and reservations, guest profiles, staffing, back office, and payment system integration. The company also offers consulting services and marketing strategies for online and offline merchandising, including solutions for mobile and social media marketing, website design and software hosting services.

Travel Network

Sabre Travel Network is a global business-to-business travel marketplace and consists primarily of the company’s own global distribution system (GDS) and a broad set of solutions that integrate with the GDS.

This marketplace is used by travel suppliers including approximately 400 airlines, 175,000 hotel properties, 200 tour operators, 50 rail carriers, 40 car rental outlets and 17 cruise lines to promote, personalize and sell their products to travel management companies, corporate travel departments, and approximately 425,000 travel agents, around the world. The marketplace includes a mobile-enabled platform for travel buyers to shop, price, book and pays for travel. In addition, Sabre provides data-rich solutions that give travel buyers and suppliers unique insights into their operations as well as customer shopping and booking trends.

Let’s have a look at the technologies developed by Sabre

Data Solutions

Sabre operates at the intersection of travel and digital technology. Its experts use a wealth of data to help customers deliver more personalized experiences to travelers. This is a time when everyone lives and breathes data, which can be disruptive, drive innovation and enhance business success. Sabre unlocks the value of data to help its customers gain actionable insights that enhance their success. Sabre has long been a pioneer in data and business intelligence.

The Sabre travel marketplace transacts more than $120 billion of travel spend per year.

The company’s technology processes more than 1.1 trillion system messages each year, including 100,000 messages per second during peak times and 1.5 billion daily API requests.

More than 12 billion shopping requests are processed through Sabre annually. The company’s system can quickly cull through billions of possibilities to return the most appropriate itineraries to travel shoppers.

More than one billion people use Sabre technology every year to plan, book and experience travel.

Meet the driving force behind Sabre’s meteoric rise

Sean Menke is president, CEO and a member of the board of directors for Sabre Corporation, the premier technology solutions provider to the global travel industry. He leads more than 10,000 colleagues across a global network of development, sales, operations and corporate teams working in 65 countries.

Sean was promoted to president and CEO in December 2016, bringing his wealth of travel industry knowledge and experience using technology to drive business success to the Sabre C-suite. As both a former customer of Sabre and now its chief executive, Sean is well-equipped to help Sabre’s travel industry customers leverage technology solutions to operate more efficiently, deliver better customer service, and drive more revenue and personalized customer experiences using enhanced data and analytics.

Outside of work, Sean enjoys participating in marathons, ultra-marathons, cycling and snow skiing and spending time with his wife and three boys. He earned his MBA from the University of Denver and a dual Bachelor of Science degree in economics and aviation from Ohio State University.

“Our technology processes over US$120B of estimated travel spend across more than 1.1 trillion system messages.”