Sabre boss Sean Menke says the travel technology company has embarked on an “audacious” goal to “lead a new market for personalized travel” by the year 2025.
Specifically, the company has set its sights on how it can bring multiple components of a trip together, the Sabre president and CEO says, which includes scaling its New Distribution Capability program to support airlines and agencies.
But what will NDC look like in 2025, and how much air content will be sold through an NDC connection by then?
Any prediction “would be a wild guess,” Menke says, speaking during an executive roundtable at the Sabre Technology Exchange (STX) event in Las Vegas last week.
“I believe we have taken a very strong position to try and read this,” he says, pointing to the work Sabre has done with its NDC partner program thus far.
When we look at the travel ecosystem today, do we actually believe it’s modern-day retailing? I don’t.
Sean Menke - Sabre
“The reality to the situation … is there’s an enormous amount of work to do. Not just on the airline side; a lot of work has to happen on the agency side as well.”
He “absolutely” believes there will be meaningful penetration by 2025, “but it might not be NDC as we know it today,” he says.
“When we look at the travel ecosystem [today], do we actually believe it’s modern-day retailing? I don’t,” he continues. “There’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Cem Tanyel, president of Sabre Airline Solutions, agrees “there’s no exact number” Sabre is working toward by 2025, but the company is in the midst of a learning process, and the industry will in turn evolve.
“If you look at the world of technology, open standards always take over proprietary,” he says. “There’s an openness coming to the airline industry. Technology and tools will keep evolving with our systems.”
The investments Sabre has made in the NDC space are gaining traction, and its testing of live NDC offers with United Airlines is a “very encouraging” first step, Tanyel says. “We’re going to keep building on those partnerships.”
The data question
In this brave new NDC world, who owns the traveler data?
The answer can’t be considered in a vacuum, says Wade Jones, president of Sabre Travel Network.
“In order to give the traveler what he or she expects or deserves, we’re going to have to think about different paradigms because none of us can do it alone.”
That’s when a trust component comes into play, Menke adds, where airlines or even hoteliers need to look at and trust the broader opportunity.
“We can think from a technology perspective how you link those things, but how do you sell products and services?”
The quest for a single golden traveler profile is a “fool’s errand,” says Clinton Anderson, president of Sabre Hospitality Solutions.
Technology that provides shopping data and shopping personas is going to be “the real solution in the next two or three years as opposed to a company searching for a golden profile,” he says.
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Dave Shirk, president of Sabre Travel Solutions, says consumers - particularly in the millennial generation, which will reach peak purchasing power by 2025 - are increasingly willing to give information about themselves if they receive value for it.
“That will start to increase the profile picture that you have, and ultimately the consumer’s going to control it,” he says. “It’s foolish to think we’re going to come up with some magical view [of the consumer].”
“The question of who will own traveler data … the answer is so fragmented,” Tanyel says, “and I think that’s going to continue to be the case.”
The Google and Amazon question
Menke admits Sabre has its eye on potential moves by Amazon and Google in the space, noting how the latter has already placed a focus on flight and hotel search.
“Listen, Amazon is a very good retailer, and when I look at the space and look at where they are, I don’t think we can rule them out as well,” he says.
However, there’s vertical technology Amazon still needs to develop. “Our [technology] gets a lot more complex: retailing, distribution, fulfillment. The way I look at it, retailing in our sector - the hospitality or airline side - is really about the offer creation.
“It’s our responsibility to work with hoteliers around the world or airlines and look at how do you look at creating product? We have a model that’s been out there a while, and where NDC comes in, that’s the offer creation.”
Menke says the fulfillment component is Sabre’s “secret sauce,” and he’s yet to be convinced the tech giants will be successful in penetrating all the way down.
“On the data side of the equation, I think Amazon has done a wonderful job,” he says. “But in the travel ecosystem … how do you look at data differently and market it differently? A lot needs to be done.”