Sabre Forms Corporate Solutions Division, Names Karmis Leader

Sabre combined into its newly formed Global Corporate Solutions division business lines that serve corporate customers and named former Travelocity Business president Yannis Karmis to lead it. The group encompasses the GetThere corporate booking tool, the TruTrip system for managing and tracking bookings regardless of source, the TripCase Corporate mobile app, which by the end of the year will fully replace Sabre Virtually There, "and other areas of the business that support corporate travel."

Karmis also will continue to lead the Travelocity Partner Network, a position he assumed when Sabre sold TBiz to BCD Travel.

According to the registration statement Sabre filed last month in relation to its proposed initial public offering, Sabre Travel Network intends to "invest significant resources" in such "workflow optimization" tools as the Sabre Red App Centre and TruTrip.

Sabre announced TruTrip last summer. The idea is to combine TripCase's aggregation capabilities with GetThere and Sabre Red technology to synch business travel itineraries across channels and make all the associated information available to travelers, their employers and their travel management companies. "We have been engaging with customers on functionality, how it will work and getting feedback from them to continue fine-tuning various functionalities," according to a Sabre official. "We will announce launch date at the end of Q1."

Meanwhile, launched in 2009, the TripCase mobile itinerary management app now is used by 2.5 million travelers, more than 15,000 travel agencies and 26 airlines, according to Sabre. The company in 2013 made available TripCase Corporate with features for managed travel programs.

According to the Sabre official, the company in North America and Europe already has "migrated off Sabre Virtually There," the itinerary solution that was a precursor to TripCase. "Latin America will move this summer," the official continued. "We still have airlines using the product through the end of the year. We plan to sunset it officially by end of the year.