Over the past few years, I’ve read numerous articles from various industry pundits lamenting the lack of innovation in the online travel landscape. While some of their points are valid, I think we should take a step back and recognize the fact that there are several examples of how travel startups are striving to reinvent travel, and succeeding in their efforts.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Sean Arena, executive director, new business ventures, Sabre.
As noted by others, it is fair to say there are daunting hurdles in breaking out in the online travel space:
- Travel is complicated, convoluted, and chaotic. Technologies are ever-changing, advancing, and expanding… combine these dynamics and you’re in for an intense ride.
- 24x7 operation of systems powering travel is critical to so many industries, economies, and livelihoods, that stability often trumps sexiness – almost to a fault.
- Proliferation of data has intensified the challenge of creating meaningful, unique and ultimately…actionable insights.
Bottom line: reshaping the world of online travel is challenging. That said, it is not without its trailblazers and it is not without opportunity. As I’ve said before during prior Tnooz webinars, we’re witnessing a three-way collision between search, social, and retail – that is continuously evidenced by the outflow of multi-faceted travel businesses, be it Uber, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, Hipmunk, OptionsAway or the myriad of others.
As a major technology player in the travel industry Sabre holds, in part, the responsibility to:
- Help create and cultivate new platforms to move the industry forward
- Drive change and foster new concepts
- Remove barriers and simplify how travel works for everyone in the ecosystem
To add a deeper level of tangibility, we reached out to a few of our innovative startup partners to provide a glimpse into how they’re tackling the challenges of the industry, as well as their approach to solving various problems in the world of travel today.
Hopper
Hopper provides insightful, data-driven research to help travelers make better decisions about where to go, and when to fly and buy.
What motivated you to build your website/app?
We initially set out to develop a product to help with the broad process of destination discovery and travel planning. As part of that, we were analyzing huge volumes of flight data and realized that consumers were responding extremely positively to our data-driven flight research and tools.
We were hearing from consumers that they were frustrated with the flight buying process because flight pricing is highly complex and opaque. Consumers often don't have the information they need to get the best deal on flights. Now, we've focused specifically on using a wide range of data, including billions of daily flight prices, to help travelers make better decisions about where to go, and when to fly and buy.
What do you see as your key differentiators?
There are a lot flight booking options out there. However, most are focused on selling you a ticket instead of providing context and information to help you understand the market and get the best deal. Travelers are faced with questions like how much should I pay, when are the best times to fly, should I book now or wait. By answering these questions, we save travelers time and money and provide them with the peace of mind that they got a great deal.
What were the initial barriers? How has Sabre helped with that?
One of the big barriers to providing actionable and timely flight purchasing advice is having access to large volumes of information. Working with Sabre means we have access to real-time insights and can see shifts in prices and consumer search patterns. Without this information, we would not be able to do what we do. In combination with Sabre's flight shopping APIs, the consumer can transition seamlessly from broad exploration of where and when to fly, into booking the specific flight that's right for them.
SuperFly:
Superfly is a flight search engine that aims to personalize your results by taking into account your air miles and travel preferences.
What motivated you to build your website/app?
Superfly CEO, Jonathan Meiri, told us, our goal initially was to build a better Kayak. We felt that the existing metasearch sites under-served the needs of frequent travelers. We decided to focus on personalizing the travel search experience - starting with including users’ miles, points and elite status in sorting the search results. Our website would take into account who the traveler is based on deep profile insights and find the best travel itineraries.
From the early days, we were focused on data. We had a lot of information on consumers, and they pointed us in that direction. Today we are a data company. We help airlines identify and target frequent travelers with amazing elite status offers through our platform. With what we have, we are providing amazing insights into the customer experience. We operate superfly.com and its mobile extensions with most of our revenue coming from using data to help our partners’ make an impact with elite travelers.
What do you see as your key differentiators?
Marc Andreesen, co-author of Mosaic, said that software is eating the world, and we are betting that the travel industry is the next dish on the table. We believe our early focus on building elaborate profiles on the consumer side, and earning the trust of airlines, hotels and OTAs on the supply side - are the key to success. Both sides have a lot to gain by better leveraging their data. A lot of people throw around the words “big data,” but it’s really the profile building algorithms and predictive analytics that will make an impact.
What were the initial barriers? How has Sabre helped with that?
The travel space is quite complicated. It is hard to understand who is creating value in the travel exchange. Despite the clear consumer pain related to earning and burning miles and points efficiently - - it took us time to understand, as a company, how we could create value. A travel technology company like Sabre, with its supplier relationships, and network of agents and financial resources, is well positioned to support startups that are bringing innovative products to market.
Loyalty is owned by the airlines. Initially, it was not as evident how we could create value for our other partners - including hotels and OTAs. At the core, it is about how you create a win-win-win for the supplier, the customer, and the business. As a brand new partner to Sabre, it will be interesting to see how they can help us fulfill that promise.
As a startup, getting this type of focus from Sabre is amazing. Superfly has an innovative business; Sabre provides the scale and technology to help accelerate our vision. That’s where it will get very interesting.
FareScout by FlyinAway (app):
FareScout helps you make travel plans by searching millions of historical airfare data points, helping you understand the likelihood of your fare going up or down, before you book your flight.
What motivated you to build your app?
We set out to build FareScout because we want to make the travel experience more affordable, more efficient, and more enjoyable. Knowing when to book and finding great fares on mobile is difficult for many travelers. Many people have ideas on the best time to book, but you rarely feel sure that you have the information you need to make an informed decision—so you always wonder if you’re really getting the best deal, and you feel like you have to check 20 different sites in the process.
FareScout uses API’s to analyze and synthesize millions of historical data points, to give travelers access to valuable insights in a simple format, on the convenience of their mobile devices. This way, customers can feel confident they are booking at the right time to get the best price. FareScout is a trusted partner for travelers, that takes care of the hard work on their behalf and always delivers the best price, at the right time.
What do you see as your key differentiators?
We know from experience what it takes to build a travel business—including partnering with trusted leaders like Sabre. But more importantly, we love travel and we love tech. That’s why we place so much emphasis on the user experience. We believe FareScout is the simple and easy-to-use solution travelers are looking for to search and book flights on their mobile devices. We dispense with myths and tired tips on when is the best time to book. Instead, we give our customers relevant information, in an easy-to-use and easy-to-understand format, right on their mobile device—so they can book with confidence, and ease, knowing they got the best deal at the right time.
We use a proprietary algorithm in conjunction with Sabre APIs to offer supplier partners a unique opportunity to reach travelers who are ready to book right now. This means better prices for FareScout users, without the hassle of searching dozens of sites, and highly qualified leads for industry suppliers.
What were the initial barriers? How has Sabre helped with that?
By using travel APIs and informational services from a trusted industry leader in Sabre, we can focus on what we do best: building an elegant and effective mobile app that solves a real-world problem for our customers.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are new ventures actively bringing different concepts and perspectives into this space. The aforementioned companies are great examples of how the online travel landscape is still ripe with opportunities and challenges, and interested parties that are seeking to address them… and I, for one, am very excited about the future of our industry.
We’re at the cusp of witnessing the emergence of a multitude of groundbreaking technologies and trends – wearables, Internet of Things, big data, micro-personalization, virtual reality, digital currencies, artificial intelligence, you name it – they all carry implications in travel, and are all disruptive ingredients that can and will be embraced by the travel businesses of tomorrow. Fortune favors the bold – and we, along with our online partners, are up to the task.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Sean Arena, executive director, new business ventures, Sabre. It appears here as part of Tnooz’s sponsored content initiative.
NB2: Disclaimer: Hopper CEO Fred Lalonde is the chairman of Tnooz.
NB3: Building blocks image via Shutterstock.