Wade Jones (pictured), president of Sabre Travel Network, spoke at STX London earlier this week to explain how 2018 is “The Year of Intelligent Retailing”.
However, he first outlined the complexities of travel. “Today, Amazon has 480 million products on its shelf. For a London to New York city pair, there are 63 billion possibilities,” he said, adding that customers today now have a choice of 900,000 hotels globally.
Agencies must therefore harness technology to offer the right holiday or travel product, in the quickest time, he argued.
“The biggest drivers of change – is it NDC, sharing economy, direct connect? I think it’s the expectations customers set across their experiences. These expectations come from other industries,” he added. “Take Starbucks. There are 87,000 combinations for a drink, that comprises coffee, water and milk. What a hassle we have to tell Starbucks that we want a ‘triple latte grande’. But Amazon knows what you want, 35% of its revenue can be attributed to its recommendation engine.”
Jones also described how agents sould be able to "delight" their customers with personalisation. But referring to the data architecture changes Sabre was making, he said he felt more work was needed to offer agents an easier way of selling travel. “We make travel agents work hard because of the way our technology is structured. How do we get it so we think about people? We need to give customers unexpected delights, but then the tough part is continuing that momentum. So the first time a passenger checks in and the desk already knows their name, you need to do the same next time,” he said.
One method to improve customer recognition is "omni-channel retail" he said, and said its Tripcase had recently added new shopping APIs and was able to work across several GDSs.
Meanwhile, he said he beleived the line between service and selling was blurring, and cited personal finance app Revolut as an example. As an “always on service”, he explained that the app automatically detects when a user enters a new country, via GPS functionality, and will automatically offer health insurance (medical and dentistry) for a minimal amount in that country.
Jones also claimed Sabre had now improved its “shopping time” and was able to return results within 1.7 seconds, compared with 2.7 seconds previously. He also said Sabre finds the lowest fare 10% more often than its rival Amadeus. “We’re investing in not just finding the lowest fare, but also the best fare,” he added.