Sabre Holdings today announced plans this quarter to launch Travelocity Business, an online agency it described as both a product and a service for small or midsize companies that do not, or only lightly, manage travel.
Powered by GetThere's Direct MidMarket technology, the new offering competes with business products from Expedia and Orbitz. Priced at $5 for self-service transactions and $20 for those that require agent assistance, the product is run by former Sabre Travel Network North American senior vice president Ellen Keszler, who last month was named president of Travelocity Business. Sabre appointed former senior vice president and controller Hugh Jones to fill Keszler's prior position.
Keszler reports to Travelocity CEO Sam Gilliland, who launched Sabre's Business Travel Solutions under Orbitz CEO Jeff Katz, then Sabre's president. Gilliland in February described the GetThere customer as one who wishes to choose their agency and possibly their global distribution system, but "The question is, what do you do with the low end?"
Keszler said Sabre had been working on Travelocity Business for "a number of months," and that the timing coincides with the imminent launch of GetThere's Release 6. GetThere is preparing buyers and site administrators for Release 6, to which users of both BTS and GetThere's DirectCorporate are migrating. "Travelocity Business leverages the unique content and brand name of Travelocity and the expertise of GetThere, and we believe it will leapfrog any similar offering available from Travelocity's competitors," Keszler said.
About 600 clients of a precursor Travelocity business service
(BTN, April 9, 2001) will be transferred to Travelocity Business when it is launched, Keszler said. She claimed the product will include more and more configurable travel policy applications than Expedia and Orbitz tout in their current business services. Travelocity's in-house fulfillment operation, which Keszler said employs experienced corporate agents, also will apply corporate travel policies to phone-based dealings with travelers. The product will allow the loading of negotiated rates, identification of preferred suppliers, blocking of nonpreferreds, messaging, monthly reporting of detailed booked and ticketed data and traveler selection of reasons for noncompliance. Keszler said Travelocity also will offer business clients a form of GetThere's adoption consulting
(BTN, Feb. 26, 2001).
Keszler said Sabre will provide more detail on pricing before Travelocity Business is launched. Travelocity cited GetThere figures, saying clients can save about $100 per trip versus a traditional agency setup.
Asked about channel conflict, Keszler said Sabre remains dedicated to providing the best products to its traditional agency subscribers. "Together, GetThere and the agencies have not been as successful as anyone would like in penetrating this market," she said, referring to small and midsize companies.
Business Travel News' midmarket research (
BTN, June 24, 2002) indicated 75 percent of accounts spending under $2 million annually on air travel in the United States and 23 percent of those between $2 million and $12 million have no intention of buying a corporate self-booking tool. Meanwhile, 53 percent and 20 percent of those groups, respectively, already allow travelers to use online agencies. Added together, these two groups dwarf the large market, in which GetThere continues to ramp up adoption.
"There will be some overlap with Direct MidMarket, since we're leveraging all the capabilities of that product," Keszler said. "But the $5 is lower than what agencies charge for it and we're not saying we'll provide high-touch fulfillment services, whereas Expedia is competing for those customers."
Asked whether Travelocity Business salespeople would avoid targeting clients of Sabre's agency subscribers, Keszler said the unit's direct salesforce would "focus more" on businesses that do not now use Sabre. An option to enroll online also will be available.
The announcement follows by two days the realization of an option for Sabre agencies to book on Travelocity or connect their customers to it, something Sabre in October said it was considering.