The company that revolutionized travel in the 1960s now wants Google’s help in reshaping and improving the global travel industry.
Google Cloud has just announced that it has joined forces with Sabre Corporation— a software and technology provider in the global travel industry—to digitally transform traveler experiences and co-create the future of travel.
As part of the 10-year partnership agreement, engineers and business leaders at both companies will work side-by-side on three main initiatives:
- 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 with advanced support and greater flexibility to meet its technology objectives.
- Using Google Cloud tools to enhance and optimize travel: Google Cloud’s data analytics tools will enable Sabre to enhance the capabilities of current and future products. Google will provide Sabre with insights to help them improve operational efficiency and create and optimize travel options, improving both loyalty and revenues for its customers.
- 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.
Sabre, which launched in 1960, revolutionized 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 US$260B worth of global travel spend annually, supporting a wide range of travel providers such as individual airlines, hoteliers, agencies, travel aggregators, and other agencies. The partnership will 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.
Said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud: “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. We believe our partnership will deliver more personalized experiences for travelers, saving time and providing greater convenience that will ultimately raise the standard for the travel industry overall.”
Said Sabre President and Chief Executive Officer, Sean Menke: “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. (Now) 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.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, added: “At Google we build tools to help others, so a big part of our mission is helping other companies realize theirs. We’re so glad that Sabre has chosen to work with us to further their mission of building the future of travel. Travelers seek convenience, choice and value. Our capabilities in AI and cloud computing will help Sabre deliver more of what consumers want.”
