Sabre, known for its business-to-business offerings to travel agents, airlines, hotels and corporations, is fine-tuning what could turn out to be the company’s first major consumer product since launching Travelocity.
The product is a mobile application developed by the Sabre Travel Studios unit. Known as TripCase, it is designed to help consumers organize and share travel itineraries from disparate intermediaries and suppliers.
TripCase enables travelers who booked their trips through a Sabre-connected travel agency to input their record locator and import their itinerary into their iPhones, BlackBerrys and soon into Windows Mobile smart phones.
If the trip, room or other product was booked through a non-Sabre agency or directly with a supplier, travelers can manually import their reservations into their TripCase itineraries so they have them at the ready and can share travel plans with work colleagues, friends, family or whomever else they choose.
This type of post-reservation management capability is hot in the start-up arena; TripCase is competing with companies such as TripIt, Traxo, Kayak and Dopplr, each of which offers its own application.
TripCase is important to travel agents on at least two fronts.
John Samuel, senior vice president of Sabre Travel Studios, said part of TripCase’s business model would be to charge advertising fees to travel agents and suppliers if they want to send relevant messages to travelers on their mobile devices as they, for example, walk past an airport baggage-handling area or restaurant.
Because many mobile phones have global positioning system functionality, Samuel said that TripCase would be able to send travelers a message from an airport restaurant, for example, when the GPS in their phone indicates they are in the vicinity.
Samuel said TripCase would be a means for agents and suppliers to provide clients "with the most current information," but he cautioned that the communications would have to be "relevant."
"If we’re not strict, customers won’t use the product," he conceded.
TripCase could also have an impact on VirtuallyThere, the co-branded agency/Sabre product that enables agents to email clients their itineraries as a marketing tool.
"It makes sense that TripCase and VirtuallyThere work together," Samuel said, adding that there "has been a lot of thought" about consolidating the two brands, although no decision has been made.
Samuel worked for 17 years at American, where he headed the group that created AA.com. He left in the summer of 2003 and moved on to Orbitz, where he handled consumer operations. He departed in late 2004, when Cendant acquired the company.
After doing some consulting, Samuel began talking to Sabre CEO Sam Gilliland, whom he knew, about the concept of forming an entity that combined the resources of a large company with a start-up structure, enabling the owners to take an interesting idea and "get something to the market very quickly."
Those conversations had a lot to do with the formation of Sabre Travel Studios.
In late 2006, Sabre folded Sabre Labs, its in-house research unit and product creator, into Sabre Travel Studios, where development, product management and marketing teams were brought together to create a more nimble entity in which to incubate start-up businesses.
In the past, Samuel said, it was difficult to get a start-up idea going in a large organization, because it always had to compete with various departments for resources.
Sabre Travel Studios’ launch of TripCase in late 2008 raised eyebrows because a few months earlier, in April 2008, Sabre had become a minority investor in TripIt, which offers a competing product.
Samuel doesn’t see the contradiction. He said Sabre did not view it as an "either/or" situation, since there will be a lot of players in the post-booking management sector.
TripCase and TripIt have different features, Samuel said, adding, "I think we don’t know where something like this will fit in."
Norm Rose, an expert on mobile applications and the owner of Travel Technology Consulting, said Sabre was engaging in a classic second-mover strategy where it can "learn from TripIt’s experimentation, attempt to steal its thunder and market share or eventually buy it."
With TripCase, Sabre undoubtedly has an advantage over many competitors because it operates a GDS, enabling TripCase to import itineraries through record locators.
Samuel said Sabre was interested in making TripCase an agnostic tool and was talking with another GDS and other entities about streamlining the process of getting their itineraries into TripCase.
On that issue, Forrester Research principal travel analyst Henry Harteveldt said it would be in Sabre’s interest to make TripCase multi-GDS and agnostic in terms of where consumers book their travel.
"It’s an open question as to whether Sabre has created something different or if this is just another flavor of VirtuallyThere," Harteveldt said. He added that he did not believe TripCase would generate a lot of ad revenue for Sabre.
While TripCase is a consumer product, Sabre Travel Studios’ other pet project is Cubeless, a social networking application for corporations.
One of the largest applications of Cubeless is AgentStream, an online community in which travel agents establish profiles, ask questions, share answers and in the process form an intuitive knowledge base, among other features.
Sabre has its own in-house version of Cubeless, too, called SabreTown, which Samuel says is used by 60% to 70% of Sabre employees.
Other travel entities using Cubeless include American Express Business Travel, Nexion and GetThere, the latter two of which are affiliated with Sabre. Samuel said Sabre also has Cubeless agreements with Naturally Slim, Junior Achievement, the East Coast Hockey League and several Texas school districts.
Sabre is marketing Cubeless to enterprises of any type, charging them a one-time setup fee plus monthly fees based on the number of "seats," Samuel said.