A new era of personalised travel

Technology will play a major role in facilitating recovery, ushering in a new era of personalised travel that will present more opportunities for businesses and a better experience for travellers. Sean Menke, Chief Executive Officer, Sabre, outlines how Sabre enabled change beyond the pandemic.

Year 2020 was game-changing – it presented the greatest challenge ever faced in the travel industry, with global air and hotel bookings down more than in any previous year. As a leading technology provider to the global travel industry, Sabre has had a front-row seat, with insight into global trends and data as events unfolded.

As the impact of the COVID-19 virus spread, Sabre took quick and decisive actions to improve its resilience, taking measures such as reducing fixed costs, raising additional liquidity and introducing a flexible ‘work from anywhere’ programme. These actions allowed the team to focus on the day-to-day business in 2021 and 2022. “We also had to focus on our customers – many of them around the world were facing the headwinds that we were dealing with and we needed to help them work through what was taking place. While we are still managing through the crisis, there is a group of us at Sabre that is very focused on our evolution beyond COVID-19. We believe that the initiatives we have been able to set up through 2020 and are continuing to work on now will enable us to reshape travel in the years and decades to come,” said Sean Menke.

Despite the headwinds of 2020, Sabre recorded some major achievements. The company advanced its technology transformation and modernisation which included the continuing migration of its technology to Google Cloud. On the hospitality IT side, the company signed key commercial wins and renewals in 2020 with major players like All-Inclusive by Marriott and Louvre Hotels. Sabre also extended distribution agreements with some of its largest airline customers, among them Southwest Airlines and Lufthansa Group.

“Long term, we believe that travel will continue to be a growth industry. Over the last 50 years, there have only been six calendar years in which global passenger volume declined, and the maximum decline was less than two percent – even factoring in previous obstacles to growth like the 9/11 attacks, SARS, or the 2008 financial collapse. While no one can predict exactly what future travel will look like, especially on the other side of this pandemic, I am certain that travel will rebound. We are committed to our vision to create a new market for personalised travel by 2025, and intend to deliver on that vision by continuing to focus on our own tech transformation and on developing and delivering flexible, differentiated products that help our customers drive revenue and yield,” said Menke.

Key focus areas to overcome the crisis

Consumer demand for a personalised experience, focusing on IT capabilities, processes and intelligence to enable intelligent retailing

Future of distribution by enabling airlines to distribute personalised offers through the GDS marketplace and Sabre’s direct channels

The low-cost carrier market, where Sabre worked to create more ways for LCCs to retail and distribute content

Strengthening the hospitality IT solutions portfolio by growing the CRS business and adding full-service capabilities to its property management system

Technological transformation, Google being one of the more important partnerships