Sabre Travel Network announced 50 percent of its targeted
subscribers have upgraded to Sabre Red, the company's new agent suite.
More than 82,000 travel agents in 100 countries now are
"realizing the benefits of the Red Workspace, with its superior speed, increased
efficiency and flexible administrative controls," the company announced.
Sabre had reached about 40 percent, or more than 60,000 users in 95 countries,
as of early November, Sabre Travel Network senior vice president of marketing
Chris Kroeger said at the time.
Before that, Sabre had aimed to upgrade all users by year-end 2010. Amadeus and Travelport also have suffered delays in rolling out
their new agent tools. Sabre in a Monday statement quoted Tom Osovitzki, CEO of
Canada-based multinational travel management company CTMS, as linking the
"extreme efficiency" of Red Workspace with the company's
"significant increase in revenue" during the past seven months.
"It helps our agents use their time more effectively,
which means they can serve more customers," according to Osovitzki.
Distinguishing it from Sabre's older points of sale, Red Workspace
allows users to configure its interface elements and tools, provides
"seamless integration of applications" and adjusts to operate
reliably in "different types of environments, including low bandwidth
areas," Sabre stated. "In the coming weeks, Sabre will increase the
number of agencies beta-testing a fully graphical workflow for air, car and
hotel, expanding on its current graphical capabilities. The expanded graphical
workflow will deliver significantly greater efficiency and ease of use, even
for the most expert agents."