This must be one of the travel business announcements of the year: Sabre has completed a new agreement with Flight Centre Travel Group, to provide its distribution services and Sabre Red Workspace to Flight Centre travel agents in Australia and New Zealand.
This new agreement comes following continued growth of Flight Centre’s relationship with Sabre in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. FCT Group is a $20 billion business consisting of more than 40 brands and Sabre processes more than US$120 billion of global travel spend annually.
FLT managing director Graham Turner said: “We are delighted to have extended our relationship with Sabre. One of our key global strategies has been to increase productivity and we believe that Sabre’s strong product suite, which is now fully implemented in Australia and New Zealand, will help us build on the success we are already having in this regard.”
“We share a common belief and vision that the right technology solutions coupled with scale and innovation will deliver the experience that travelers want”
– Wade Jones, president of Sabre Travel Network
Sabre has already installed the new Sabre Red Workspace to than 1,300 Flight Centre locations, representing nearly 9,500 travel agents. Sabre has been able to reduce the amount of time associated with initial training and onboarding of Flight Centre staff, in addition to providing a system designed to allow consultants to up-sell and cross-sell more effectively.
Wade Jones, president of Sabre Travel Network, said: “Flight Centre is a thought leader and ours is a natural partnership. We share a common belief and vision that the right technology solutions coupled with scale and innovation will deliver the kind of shopping and retailing experience that travelers want, while delivering the efficiency and speed that agents need.
“Since expanding our relationship and rolling out the new Sabre Red Workspace, Flight Centre travel agents are already seeing the promising results that we expect from our highly-intuitive and ultra-fast desktop solution.”
Under the agreement, Flight Centre Travel Group will use the Sabre GDS as one of its key platforms to shop, book and manage travel content from among 400 airlines, 900,000 hotel options, 24 car rental brands and 14 cruise lines.
