Sabre Travel Network today announced enhancements to its highly efficient cruise shopping and booking platform, Sabre Cruises, to improve travel agents search, booking, marketing and customer service capabilities. These enhancements include lead-in pricing functionality, integration with Live Connect providing customer relationship management (CRM) functionality through TRAMS’ ClientBase and increased passenger options during the booking process.
“With these new capabilities, agents using Sabre Cruises will be spending less time on the phone with multiple cruise lines and more time focusing on customer service using immediate information on cruise choices,” said Dan Westbrook, vice president of merchandising, Sabre Travel Network. “Lead-in pricing is the number one requested enhancement that agents have asked for and is another way Sabre is helping travel agents save time and operate efficiently.”
With new lead-in pricing functionality, agents can better match their customer’s needs with each sailing without having to click around the display options. The ‘Best Available Fare’ option now shows displays for inside, ocean view, balcony and suite cabin categories on the sailing results page. Sabre Cruises also offers the capability to determine the alternate passenger category price based on changing factors such as a passenger’s age, insurance selection, origination city, transportation or number of passengers in a cabin.
Sabre Cruises integrates customer relationship management (CRM) functionality by supporting the Live Connect feature available on TRAMS’ ClientBase CRM tool. The Live Connect feature provides a direct connection to the Sabre Cruises booking engine, with a two-way transfer of information. With Live Connect, in one click, a user can automatically log in to Sabre Cruises, use the client’s profile to make Sabre Cruises reservations and import reservation details back into the client’s Res Card in ClientBase. Agents marketing cruises to their existing clients have the potential to grow their repeat business rates from the average 20 percent to more than 80 percent through ClientBase.
“The integration of Live Connect from TRAMS is another way that Sabre is leveraging its unique combination of assets to help travel agents become better marketers with tools that enable them to bring new customers in the door, an keep them coming back, and doing so in a way that drives business results,” Westbrook added.
The new features also build upon Sabre Cruises ability to book comprehensive passenger services — additional trip components on a passenger-by-passenger basis, including insurance, cruise line air add-on and pre- and post-trip packages. With enhanced booking capabilities agents can book an available category and, if a category is sold out, select up to three waitlist categories all in the same booking.
Enhancements were made based on feedback from Sabre Cruises users.
The frequently asked questions (FAQs) page accessible from the Sabre Cruises homepage contains helpful hints and tips on business rules when working with cruise lines, which were gathered by Sabre Cruises users. “We value the input we receive from agents and will continue to develop and offer new functionalities in 2008 and beyond that enhance the efficiency and profitability for both agents and cruise line suppliers,” said Westbrook.
Other added features enable agents to:
— Search and drill down to the right sailing,
— Sort through search results by port of embarkation,
— See sailings that only match their request, and
— Easily look up past passengers’ frequent cruiser numbers.
Sabre Cruises gives travel agents direct access to 12 cruise lines, representing 85 percent of Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) cruise cabins in a single source. It is available to all travel professionals in North America, including those that are not Sabre subscribers, through VacationStudio powered by MySabre.
Sabre Travel Network will be showcasing Sabre Cruises as well as its entire leisure suite of products in exhibit booth # 715 at CLIA’s cruise3sixty conference March 7-9 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
About Sabre Travel Network
Sabre Travel Network, a Sabre Holdings company, provides the most comprehensive end-to-end solutions for corporate and leisure travel.
The Sabre GDS is the foundation for these solutions, providing a ready-built efficient marketplace that connects travel suppliers, including hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels, with more than 50,000 travel agency locations. Currently, Sabre collectively handles over 70 percent of the BTN 100 bookings.
Key brands of Sabre Travel Network include GetThere, for corporate travel reservation technology; Nexion, a host agency; SynXis, for hotel reservation management, distribution and technology services; E-site marketing, specializing in online business solutions exclusively for the hospitality industry TRAMS, mid- and back-office solutions and marketing services for travel agencies; and TRAMS Marketing Alliance (TMA), a marketing promotions services for leisure travel agencies. Sabre Travel Network also markets TripTailor Vacations, a travel wholesaler providing dynamic packaging for the travel agency marketplace.
