Google and Sabre team up to build the Future of Travel

Google Cloud has announced that it has joined forces with Sabre — a software and technology provider that powers the global travel industry—to help digitally transform the traveller’s experience, and co-create the future of travel.

Sabre, which launched in 1960, revolutionised the travel market with the industry’s first semi-automated flight reservation system. Since then, Sabre has evolved into a broad technology platform that manages more than $260 billion worth of global travel spend annually, supporting a wide range of travel providers, such as individual airlines, hoteliers, agencies, travel aggregators, and more.

The 10-year-strategic partnership between Google and Sabre hopes to enable the travel provider to improve operational agility while developing new services and creating a new marketplace for its airline, hospitality and travel agency customers.

“This is a really exciting time for Sabre, our customers, employees and other key stakeholders. For decades, Sabre has made travel easier for people on the go and within the industries that serve them,” says Sabre President and CEO, Sean Menke. “Today, we embark on a new transformational journey with Google. As our preferred cloud provider and broader strategic partner. Google Cloud will help to accelerate our digital transformation and ability to create a new marketplace and critical products and systems focused on our customer needs for decades to come.”

As part of the agreement, engineers and business leaders at both companies will work side-by-side on three main initiatives:

1. Improving Sabre’s technology capability: Sabre will begin the process of migrating its IT infrastructure to Google Cloud’s highly available and secure services. The partnership provides Sabre advanced support and greater flexibility to meet its technology objectives.
2. Using Google Cloud tools to enhance and optimise travel: Google Cloud’s data analytics tools will enable Sabre to enhance the capabilities of current and future products.  They will provide Sabre with insights to help them improve operational efficiency and create and optimise travel options, improving both loyalty and revenues for its customers.
3. Driving a broader innovation framework: The two companies have aligned upon a framework that leverages talent and assets of both companies to imagine, develop and deploy future capabilities that will advance the travel ecosystem, benefiting all market participants.

“We are thrilled to work with Sabre through this important initiative to bring together the strengths of both our companies and accelerate innovation in the travel industry,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “We believe our partnership will deliver more personalised experiences for travellers, saving time and providing greater convenience that will ultimately raise the standard for the travel industry overall.”

Edited by Jenna Delport

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