Sabre's recently announced partnership with Booking.com, which will make the OTA's listings available in the GDS later this year, is part of a larger strategy to bolster its offerings in lodging and more.
Traci Mercer, senior vice president of lodging, ground and sea, joined Sabre Travel Network at the end of 2016, when the company wanted to evaluate its "non-air space," as it was referred to at the time, to differentiate it from airline fare content. The first steps were to rename the group "lodging, ground and sea" and to closely evaluate the lodging area.
"Given how large the business was for Sabre and that Sabre has such a dominant share in the hotel bookings flow through a GDS, we knew we had a solid footprint," Mercer said. "But what we also realized is that many people were going outside the GDSs to book their lodging content."
Customer surveys and data revealed that was because of fragmentation in the lodging space from a distribution perspective. While Sabre's core offerings were strong — direct connections with 320 lodging providers give Sabre users access to some 275,000 hotels globally — Mercer said the company sought to expand offerings and increase the number of properties available in different areas around the world via content from aggregators.
"We had a huge opportunity in terms of just content coverage," Mercer said.
To address this, Sabre earlier this year partnered with Bedsonline (170,000 properties in 120 countries), TravelBound (50,000 properties in 190 countries) and the Expedia Affiliate Network (350,000 properties worldwide) to make those partners' listings available as aggregator content in Sabre Content Services for Lodging, a solution that is expected to launch later this year. It will be incorporated into the company's Sabre Red Workspace, GetThere and TripCase agent interfaces.
The Booking.com deal, announced in late June, further bolsters the available aggregator content with over 28 million listings, including alternative accommodations. Mercer said it is the first deal of its kind between Booking.com and a GDS.
"We're the only GDS that's offering this sort of depth and breadth of a multisource and multirepresentation offering," she said.
The aggregator content includes both commissionable and noncommissionable rates for agents. Mercer said listings can be sorted by any rules necessary (e.g., limitations stipulated by a corporate travel policy) and will clearly display details such as rates and amenities, including when the same listing is coming from several sources.
Lorraine Sileo, senior vice president of research and business operations at Phocuswright, said the deal with Sabre was a win for Booking.com and agents.
"It's a brilliant idea for Booking.com, as it continues to dominate the global aggregator space," Sileo said. "Integration into Sabre will make it easy for travel agencies — many of which still favor booking through the GDS — to get access to Booking's competitive hotel rates."
Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, said the deal strengthens Sabre's hotel content for agency customers and will likely save them time by presenting multisource listings.
It also offers Sabre a new revenue stream: compensation from selling the OTA's inventory. Sabre said suppliers pay it a fee when their content is booked.
"It's not all sunshine and lollipops, though," Harteveldt said. "This is an admission by Sabre that, for whatever reason, it hasn't been able to negotiate access to hotel rates or inventory to the same degree as the online travel companies. I view this as a defensive move by Sabre."
Mercer, though, touted the deal.
"We really feel like what we've done here with our Content Services for Lodging is absolutely a game changer in the GDS space," she said.