It is clear that the traditional giants of travel, once called Global Distribution Systems (GDS), are positioning themselves for the future battle ahead.
Sabre Corporation is betting on Asia – in May, it acquired the remaining 65% stake in Abacus, the Asian GDS, from its shareholder airlines for a net cash consideration of $411 million.
Roshan Mendis – to lead Sabre Travel Network in APAC
Following the move, it named Roshan Mendis (left), senior vice president of Sabre Travel Network, Asia Pacific. The Sabre executive, formerly with Travelocity and Zuji, replaced Robert Bailey, who had led Abacus for the last seven years.
Amadeus, which calls itself the travel technology company, last week forked out $830 millon to buy Navitaire, a subsidiary of Accenture, to focus mainly on digital services for airline passengers.
About 550 Navitaire employees, including its senior management team, are expected to transfer to Amadeus. Navitaire, which provides technology services to over 50 of the world’s airline operators, focuses more on the low-cost and hybrid segments in the airline industry.
Analysts see this as a move by Amadeus to expand its airline hosting business and a hedge against the declining GDS business, which every GDS is facing.
Travelport meanwhile is making a bet on mobile and today announced the acquisition of Dublin-based Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd, a mobile travel platform and product set that allows airlines, hotels, corporate travel management companies and travel agencies to engage with customers through mobile services.
MTT’s mobile apps and services are delivered, under the customer brand, to smartphones, tablets and wearable devices, including the Apple Watch.
Its clients include names such as easyJet, Singapore Airlines, Saudia, BCD Travel, Capita Travel and Events and the LATAM Airlines Group.
Travelport sees an exciting future for mobile, quoting these statistics. In 2014, mobile commerce accounted for around one third of all e-commerce transactions globally (source: Criteo); air ticket transactions are predicted to grow from just under 200 million in 2014 to over 540 million by 2018, with transaction value increasing from US$52 billion to US$145 billion for the same period (source: Juniper).
Similarly, in the US alone, the transaction value of hotel bookings made using mobile devices is expected to grow from US$2.7 billion in 2014 to US$5.4 billion in 2016, reflecting a growth rate of more than 100% in just two years (source: Juniper).
MTT will be run as a wholly owned subsidiary of Travelport, retaining existing CEO, Gerry Samuels, along with his senior team.
Travelport’s acquisition of MTT follows other recent investments which include Travel IT, a next generation German tour operator distribution system; Hotelzon, a hotel distribution company focused on enabling independent hotels to take part in the online corporate travel economy and Locomote, an Australian-based corporate travel applications development company. Travelport has also invested in, and expanded, eNett, a pioneering B2B electronic payments company which now operates in 47 countries around the world and continues to grow rapidly.
