SOUTHLAKE, Texas, Jun 08, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Sabre Travel Network, a Sabre Holdings (NYSE:TSG) company, today announced the launch of Sabre Cruises, a browser-based cruise shopping and booking tool for travel agents that offers exceptional graphical content and industry-leading tools for group and inventory management, revenue management and Web site integration.
In a partnership with OurVacationStore, Sabre now offers agents in North America a cruise booking tool that helps them enhance their revenue opportunities through high-margin cruise sales both offline and online, serve their customers more effectively by providing rich and relevant information in a graphical format, and increase profit through reduced research time and revenue management.
With Sabre Cruises agents can help customers make more informed travel choices with more than 200,000 pages of rich graphical content, including descriptions of ports of call, ship views and deck plans, attraction information, maps, overviews of itineraries and more.
Using the integrated Web site tool, agents can provide travelers with complete cruise shopping and booking capabilities on the agent’s Web site, bringing added value to the agent and providing customers the ability to shop and book through their preferred agent 24 hours a day.
Sabre Cruises also helps agents ensure optimized returns through features within the revenue management tool. This tool allows agents to load their negotiated rates with specific rate codes into Sabre Cruises as well as apply filters, such as minimum commission requirements, to cruise line inventory so they can understand at any time which sailing presents the best revenue opportunities.
“Sabre Cruises will give travel experts the information and efficiency to provide better customer service while increasing their own revenue,” said Chris Kroeger, senior vice president, Sabre Travel Network, North America. “This tool helps agents pursue the high-revenue, high-margin opportunities provided through retailing cruises. The addition of Sabre Cruises is another example of the Sabre GDS’s evolution to a Travel Marketing System.”
Sabre Cruises provides agents access to automated shopping and booking for nine cruise lines — Carnival, Celebrity, Crystal, Disney, Holland America, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Princess, Royal Caribbean and Windstar — representing over 85 percent of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) members. Using this tool, they can easily present customers a selection that best fits the travelers’ custom requirements. Additionally, Sabre Cruises provides easy options for up-selling cabin categories and selling pre-and post-sailing packages.
Sabre Cruises is available now free-of-charge through the Sabre Agency eServices Website for Sabre Connected agencies and will be available later this year on the MySabre portal platform.
About Sabre Travel Network
Sabre Travel Network, a Sabre Holdings company, provides access to the world’s leading global distribution system (GDS) enabling agents at more than 50,000 agency locations worldwide to be travel experts. The Sabre GDS, the first system to connect the buyers and sellers of travel, today includes more than 400 airlines, approximately 60,000 hotels, 32 car rental companies, nine cruise lines, 35 railroads and 220 tour operators. Key brands of Sabre Travel Network include GetThere, the leading Web-based corporate travel reservation technology, and Jurni Network, the unique leisure travel agency consortium that enables members to sell more products from preferred travel suppliers using sophisticated market intelligence.
Sabre Holdings Corporation (NYSE:TSG) is a world leader in travel commerce, retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry. More information about Sabre Holdings is available at http://www.sabre-holdings.com.
Sabre Travel Network, Sabre Cruises, Sabre Connected, Agency eServices, MySabre, GetThere and Jurni Network are trademarks and/or service marks of Sabre Holdings Corporation. All other trademarks, service marks, and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE: Sabre Travel Network
Sabre Holdings Corporation, Southlake
Nanci Williams, 682-605-2271
nanci.williams@sabre-holdings.com
