Sabre, EventSource Ink Integration Deal

<B>Sabre, EventSource Ink Integration Deal</B>

By Chris Davis

Sabre Business Travel Services last week signed a deal with meeting portal EventSource.com to integrate the Web site's meeting management technology into its online suite of travel management tools. In exchange, Sabre will be the exclusive global distribution system for bookings through EventSource's site for at least one year.

Sabre also has made an equity investment in EventSource, the specifics of which weren't disclosed, but Sabre officials called it "non-controlling" and "strategic, rather than financial."

This latest alliance in a string of meeting portal partnerships is perhaps the most significant, as it represents the deepest penetration of an online meeting company into the corporate market, as Sabre BTS claims 360 corporate customers. It also represents Sabre's most substantial move into the area of group and meetings travel.

Fort Worth, Texas-based Sabre BTS will incorporate Sausalito, Calif.-based EventSource's meeting tools, including its site-search engine and budgeting capabilities, into its own technological offerings, which include travel booking, policy compliance and expense reporting tools.

The result, the companies said, will be the ability of customers of either entity to book and capture data from all forms of corporate travel from one Web site, thereby offering leverage in negotiations and cutting travel costs.

"Sabre has been trying to aggressively gain a foothold in the meetings and group travel management industry, as it can represent 40 percent of a corporation's travel costs," said Sabre BTS vice president and general manager Scott Smith. "But rather than take the time to build it ourselves, we decided to develop a relationship, and we consider EventSource the leader in the market. Now, customers can track all spending, and not allow meetings information to slip out the side."

The move also points to a trend toward the development of tech tools for meeting buyers to find all necessary functionality in one spot, said Doug Fox, Fairfax, Va.-based meetings technology consultant and publisher of the EventWeb newsletter (www.eventweb.com) "We're moving to a world where meetings are planned and organized with easy-to-use Web-based applications, including the planning, registration and booking processes," Fox said. "Now, there are an assortment of different vendors using different technology for each. But the tools now are much better than they were even six months ago."

EventSource, which has moved to distinguish itself among meeting portals by stressing its impartiality regarding properties and its meeting space auction capabilities, now finds itself with access to a large corporate customer list that includes many Fortune 500 companies.

"This is the most defining point in the history of our company and the Internet group-travel management industry as a whole," said EventSource CEO Ed Sarraille.

But EventSource may have sacrificed some impartiality by agreeing to exclusively book through Sabre. Though Sabre claims 60 percent to 62 percent of all managed corporate domestic bookings, that still represents a large chunk of corporate meetings that the portal effectively is disqualifying itself from booking, a fact its competitors noted.

"The whole world's looking for partnerships and Sabre's a big name, so this is a smart, progressive move," said Ed Tromczynski, president of Twinsburg, Ohio-based meeting portal PlanSoft. "Certainly, all the GDSs and airlines are very smart meetings partners and I don't necessarily think we'd look for just one."

But Sarraille said it was not a major issue. "Based on the size and coverage of Sabre, we will satisfy a vast majority of individuals coming to our site," he said. "Currently, there is no integrated solution on a site from the meeting planner's perspective. And by partnering with Sabre, we will be the first ones to provide planners the ability to select the property and provide attendee registration, air, hotel and car, plus the reporting. We are far ahead of everyone else in what we have to offer."

Sabre BTS, however, does not grant EventSource similar exclusivity as part of the deal. There is nothing that precludes Sabre BTS from partnering with other meeting portals. For example, Sabre partnered with and invested in attendee-management Web site Passkey.com last July, and Passkey in March announced a relationship with PlanSoft. Although Sabre and PlanSoft have no direct relationship, the situation is emblematic of the current wave of partnering throughout the online meetings industry.

"It's a great deal and it further characterizes the atmosphere of partnership and consolidation throughout this industry," said Glenn Bingham, CEO of Henderson, Nev.-based meeting portal AllMeetings.com. "But since there's not an exclusive relationship on Sabre BTS's part, they could be open to similar relationships with other sites, and this might be the first of several."

EventSource has a history with Sabre, albeit in an indirect manner. In January, the portal became the first of its kind to incorporate a direct link to an airline by posting a zone fare calculator and link to the group and meeting travel Web site of American Airlines, which is the original parent company of now-publicly traded Sabre.

For EventSource and its competitors, though, the deal with one of the highest-profile players in travel management is a validation of the portals' existence and business models.

"The fact that Sabre BTS is focusing on online group business lends the concept more credibility and helps what we're doing," said John Lavin, president of Philadelphia-based meeting portal StarCite. "But I think we'll see similar alliances this year, and we're open to all different avenues. The Internet has led competitors to work together--just look at the airlines (<I>BTN,</I> Jan. 24). It shows this part of the industry will continue to improve and evolve.