We held our last day of STX in Las Vegas and our team continued to focus on partnering with attendees to help them “beat the odds” in the travel industry throughout. Here are some of the top things we learned on Day 3.
1. Success starts with an attitude of gratitude.
STX’s general sessions ended on a high note with speaker
John Foley, a former lead solo pilot for the elite
Blue Angels. Foley’s teams flew in planes at over 500 miles per hour and as close as 18 inches away from each other. Today, he inspires audiences to build their own high-performance teams built on a foundation of gratitude, drawing from lessons in his life.
One of the chief pieces of advice Foley gave the audience was to take time to debrief with their teams to identify areas they can improve, adding this is often the “weakest link” in organizations. In contrast, Foley’s pilots would hold roundtables after flights where each team member, regardless of role, would share what he or she could have done better. The purpose was not to criticize, but to get an honest picture of how each person could help the team improve, echoing STX’s theme – power in partnership. Each comment would end with Foley’s trademark expression, “Glad to be here,” keeping the tone positive and things in perspective.
Following John’s keynote, the last of our sessions, and closing The Exchange, we took time to thank our attendees for a wonderful event at an exclusive party at the OMNIA Nightclub in the world-famous Caesar’s Palace.
2. Market leaders agree – retailing in travel needs to change to meet new consumer demands.
Leaders from across the travel ecosystem joined Lindsay Parker, global head of marketing, Sabre Travel Network, on stage at STX for an open discussion on how retailing in travel needs to evolve in order to meet changing consumer expectations. Panel experts included Alan William, vice president air and distribution partnerships, dnata Travel; Brenda Khoury, director, global travel, AT Kearny; Dakota Smith, chief strategy officer, Hopper; Neil Guerin, director distribution strategy, American Airlines; John Bukowski, director global content and distribution strategy, Amex GBT; Sandra Taylor, senior director, Best Western Hotels and Resorts.
3. Airlines face a growing need for crew management solutions such as Crew Planner.
Airline customers learned about Crew Planner, our leading operations solution that brings crew optimization technology to our next-gen crew management ecosystem. Boeing reported that 790,000 new civil aviation pilots and 890,000 new cabin crew will be needed over the next 20 years. Given the growing demand, it is important that our integrated solution enables effective planning and increased crew satisfaction through advanced data and tools. To that end, on Tuesday, Cam Kenyon, SVP of Operations Solutions, announced the extension of the “new crew platform to include crew planning optimizers.” Rounding out our spotlight on Crew Planner, we held a crew management breakout session where Ravi Erraguntla, director of product management, featured a video demonstrating its key capabilities. Learn more about our operations launch here:
http://bit.ly/2KsXHoO.
4. “
Intent-based data” drives better digital marketing results for hoteliers.
Our Sabre Hospitality Solutions team showed their commitment to doing everything it takes to drive success for hoteliers. On Day 3, hoteliers benefited from information on how to drive their direct distribution with intent-based data. Recent studies have shown that organizations leveraging intent-based audience data in their digital marketing outperform their peers by 85%. Attendees walked away with actionable insights to improve their digital marketing, audience segmentation, and dynamic creative and website best practices. The team also continued to explore power in partnership with hoteliers to simplify and manage complexity, drive innovation, and enhance the travel ecosystem toward delivering products that matter.
5. Partnership will be key to NDC’s success.
Kathy Morgan, vice president of NDC, and Emma Wilson, vice president of marketing for Sabre Travel Network, shared the stage with our industry-leading partners to discuss how NDC is taking shape after years of debate. Kathy shared how we are implementing NDC solutions and collaborating across the industry to ensure success for our agencies, airlines and corporations. Learn more about our Beyond NDC strategy here:
www.sabre.com/beyondndc.
Thank you to everyone who took time to attend STX. We can’t wait to see you again next year when STX will visit Nashville and Singapore.
