Sabre Travel Network Delivers New, Innovative Leisure Solutions for Travel Agents

Business Wire, Sept 10, 2007

Enhanced Offerings and Capabilities Benefit All Travel Agents Regardless of GDS Affiliation or Segment

SOUTHLAKE, Texas -- Sabre Travel Network's comprehensive portfolio tailored specifically for leisure agencies has grown exponentially in the first year since announcing its leisure marketplace as the ultimate source of comprehensive shopping for the leisure travel experience.

The significant growth of Sabre's leisure marketplace includes expanded content to increase agencies' revenues, advanced customer relationship and financial reporting tools, marketing programs to broaden sales opportunities, and networking opportunities to share expertise.

"We listened to what leisure travel agents told us they need - more opportunities to increase profits, and more services that complement and expand their expertise," said Greg Webb, chief marketing officer, Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions. "We've been investing and will continue to invest resources to deliver on our commitment to provide the best end-to-end solutions for leisure agents."

One of the highlights for the year was the launch of the new tour operator, TripTailor Vacations. In the first year, more than 4,200 Sabre and non-Sabre agents have taken advantage of TripTailor's tremendous breadth of the products, its competitive pricing and dynamic-packaging capabilities. To date, agents selling TripTailor Vacations have sent more than 40,000 customers on individualized packaged vacations, and they've earned more than $2 million in commissions, service fees and bonus commissions. Additionally, the more than 9,000 agents who signed up for the Sabre Rewards Plus program in the first year have earned nearly three million Rewards Plus points.

"TripTailor Vacations lets me package air, car and hotel for my clients to destinations all over the world - and all at rates that are extremely competitive to what can be found on the Internet," said travel agent Robbi Hamida of TUR Travel. "Plus, not only can I deliver the whole experience and provide excellent service through one content-rich site, but I also can earn commissions on everything from the flight booking to theme park tickets."

Other industry-leading enhancements during the past 12 months that benefit the leisure travel agent community by providing the best travel product selection, as well as unique opportunities to increase agency revenue, include the following:

* Introduced VacationStudio, powered by MySabre, making leisure travel products such as Sabre Cruises, TripTailor Vacations and Agent59 available to all travel professionals in North America, regardless of their GDS participation. With no contract required, VacationStudio is free to all travel professionals. It's available through MySabre or at vacationstudio.com.

* Enhanced browser-based Sabre Cruises to provide improved shopping and booking on the 12 participating cruise lines. New features include enhanced client documentation, such as the ability to print deck plans, cabin pictures and pricing comparisons, as well as functionality that enables agents to make bookings faster, including the ability to clone a booking and perform a quick sell.

* Expanded Travel Extras' number of available destination activities, including theme parks, museums, theater and dining, transportation and assistance in obtaining passports and visas

* Added travel insurance vendor Travel Insured International, bringing Sabre's total number of insurance providers to 12 worldwide. Agents can book through a graphical tool and earn competitive commissions on insurance sales.

* Enhanced hotel shopping and booking capabilities with launch of the Rate Assured hotel program, the first of its kind to monitor rate parity at the property level to ensure Sabre Connected travel agents can book the lowest publicly available hotel rates. Also increased hotel content to more than 80,000 properties now available in the Sabre system

* Introduced new air shopping and booking capabilities, including: next-generation airline availability to reduce response time and provide accurate last-seat availability across a large number of itinerary options; NetCheck to increase efficiency for agency customers verifying they have the best rates available through the GDS; and the low-fare savings calculator tool based on the Topaz International study, which found that on average Sabre offers fares at least 10 percent lower than other GDS's .

Also during the past year, Sabre focused on advancing customer service tools that help agencies build lasting relationships with customers, improving accounting and reporting solutions to help agents better run their businesses, growing marketing programs that bring qualified leads to agents, and increasing opportunities for agents to network and expand their expertise. Successes in these areas include:

* Sabre Virtually There added mobile services that allow customers of a Sabre Connected agency to check flight information and received updates on their Web-enabled mobile devices, as well as checking estimated times at airport security check points.