…
Sabre has awarded the first Sabre Red Appy along with a $10,000 cash prize to Limos.com who won the top award for its car services shopping and booking Red App. The winners were named before a combined audience from Sabre’s Technology and Marketing University and Developers Conference currently being held June 5-7 in Las Vegas.
The Red App from Limos.com is a powerful search, compare and booking application for private car services. Bookings integrate into customers’ itineraries, streamlining the reservation process and increasing agent productivity. Limos.com has successfully tackled the fragmented car services industry and built strong partnerships with leading car service providers worldwide bringing great deals to their customers that cannot be found anywhere else.
TripLingo won the first runner-up prize for its business-to-business-to-consumer app. The TripLingo Red App will let travel buyers offer TripLingo’s mobile consumer app to clients whose itinerary includes a covered country. TripLingo is a mobile translation service, providing basic phrases and the ability to translate in more than 14 languages. Agents using the TripLingo Red App will add extra value to customers, stay in front of the traveler throughout the trip with a cobranded app, and earn extra revenues when users purchase premium content.
“What a thrill it’s been to watch the Red Appy finalists compete for the top prize. Each finalist has conceived a Red App idea that will translate into tangible benefits and value to our agency customers,” said Chris Kroeger, senior vice president – marketing for Sabre Travel Network. “The agents and developers at the award event are buzzing about these new Red Apps and the future potential they see in the Sabre Red App Centre.”
The winners were selected by a diverse panel of judges that included Sabre leadership, travel management company representative, and an industry technologist. Once the apps are built, all of the winners and finalists will offer their Red App through the Sabre Red App Centre.
The finalists for the Sabre Red Appys were:
- Global Net Fares – This Red App offers a visual air shopping tool that allows agents to compare flight information side by side including carriers, schedules and fares. Based upon Sabre’s low fare search functionality, the app delivers robust trip options in an easy to see format, which helps agents save time and increase productivity.
- ExpertFlyer.com – The Seat Alerts Red App will allow agents to help travelers who are stuck in an undesirable seat, such as a middle seat, to change to a better seat as one becomes available. Agents will be able to create a Seat Alert with flight specific options and will be notified when the best seat becomes available, helping them deliver outstanding personal service to travelers. Seat Alert is currently available on ExpertFlyer.com.
- HipGeo – HipGeo knows that word of mouth is the best way to attract new customers. This Red App will help agencies tap into their customer pool to promote their travel services by distributing the HipGeo smart phone travel app within their agency communications. HipGeo is used by travelers to share their adventures, excursions, and trips via the HipGeo travel blogs. Each post made by the customer will contain agency branding and links to the agency’s website. This serves to promote the agency, drive web traffic and improve search engine optimization, and gives the traveler an easy way to share their travel experiences.
- Travel Automation –The Qbotic Pro Red App will automatically revalidate or reissue tickets due to involuntary changes. Instead of agents spending an average of 4-5 minutes per booking, QBotic Pro will do the job in about 45 seconds. It can also be configured to handle bookings in full robotic mode with no agent intervention at all, delivering truly touch-less handling of involuntary reissues.
- TRX – The Queue Manager Red App is a workflow management tool that allows travel agencies to set priorities on how travel agents should work outstanding queues, i.e., reaccommodations should be handled ahead of new reservations. The Red App will monitor the agent’s queue and present the next action item based on the established priorities. The travel agent does not have to apply rules themselves and priorities remain consistent across the agency. The Red App also captures metrics on how agents are processing action items for further analysis by the agency.
Launched in March, the Sabre Red App Centre is the first online marketplace to connect travel buyers, including travel agencies, travel management companies and leisure operators, with application providers from around the world.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
