Sabre Travel Network announced a global pilot of a new work flow solution for the agency community. The new product will include a new GUI (graphical user interface), work flow management across multiple GDS, a customer profile, etc.
Sabre today announced a "long-term" full-content distribution deal with Tam. It marks the second such deal with a Brazilian airline that
previously used limited GDS distribution, and the third such agreement in South America since last summer.
Latin American carrier Lan Airlines selected Sabre to provide reservations and operational systems. Lan will follow such carriers as
JetBlue and
WestJet in deploying the Sabre Sonic Customer Sales and Service product.
Not to be outdone by
Orbitz Worldwide, Travelocity today announced its own change at the top as Hugh Jones on Feb. 6 will take over as president and CEO of Travelocity Global from current president and CEO (and Site59 founder) Michelle Peluso. Jones was most recently chief operating officer for Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions. Peluso "decided to leave the company following the recent birth of her child," the company said, but "plans to seek an executive position that does not involve an ongoing, cross-country commute."
We need to cancel rental car reservations when we don't need them. It's been a chronic problem in the car industry for years now, with average no-show rates of 9 percent to 14 percent, depending on the channel. But it's a larger issue recently for car rental companies, which are squeezed between higher car acqusition costs and customer demand for more fuel-efficient cars.
The result is that more customers are forced to wait for smaller cars, or face 'upgrades' to SUVs or larger vehicles, or don't get the cars they want. The basic problem is this: Nothing bad happens when you don't cancel your car. With hotels and airlines, no-show travelers stand a good chance of losing some money, either through fare restrictions or guaranteed-room programs. With car rentals, when you no-show, nothing happens. The only apparent loser is the car rental company. In a lower no-show environment, car rental chains can predict real demand better and match car pick-ups to arrivals more effectively. In any case, the issue is becoming painful enough that I predict we'll see some steps on the part of some companies to reward and penalize travelers who do and don't cancel.
Hotel companies might have a hard time keeping track of all the comments plastered on the Web about their properties, but with the help of Sabre Travel Network--the most recent addition to the emerging business of monitoring consumer-generated reviews for hotels--they can have these comments sent directly to them.
Using an RSS-type reader, Sabre plans to help hotel companies keep track of user-generated commentaries posted on Web sites like TripAdvisor, YouTube, flickr and possibly even Google (since Google is allegedly getting into the user review realm).
