Sabre’s TruTrip Addresses Fragmented Travel Data

Sabre is introducing TruTrip, a set of solutions that will allow travel management companies and corporate travel managers to capture travel activity from multiple sources and fill in the gaps created by out-of-program bookings.

Kyle Moore, vice president of customer marketing, said TruTrip’s launch is slated for early next year, although some of the building blocks are already in place within TripCase, Sabre’s itinerary manager; GetThere, its corporate booking tool, and the Sabre Red Workspace, the agency desktop.

The new TruTrip hub will automatically and painlessly sync information, with data moving multi-directionally among the three applications.

Capturing information
For example, a traveler attending a conference may book a hotel on its website in order to get the conference rate. When the hotel information is added to the traveler’s TripCase itinerary, it will automatically show up on the travel agent’s desktop and will be merged back into the core Sabre PNR.

In another scenario, the TruTrip Hub may detect that flights were booked for a three-day trip but no reservation was made. The travel manager can then query the traveler about his plans.

“We have the ability to capture information and bring it into the fold,” Moore said.

The Hub, an intelligent rules engine, is at the heart of the new capabilities.

“The Hub sits in the middle of all these online and offline and mobile applications and provide a seamless, consistent view of the trip,” Moore told Travel Market Report. The traveler, travel manager and travel management company will all share a graphical view of the travel plans.

Combining business and personal travel
Many travelers combine business travel with personal trips, and the traveler can decide whether certain elements on the personal side should not be sent to the Hub, Moore said.

Another critical element of the new capabilities “is what we call ‘extend,’” he said.    

Sabre has enabled good policy controls and data reporting into managed travel programs, “but we also will extend that to other types of travel products,” Moore said.

Travelers will inevitably shop for content from other sources, “and we are putting policy controls around that as we extend beyond the traditional marketplace. We are effectively bringing the traveler back into the fold.”

In the future Sabre will extend those capabilities even further and “that enriches the managed travel program,” he said.