Sabre carves up GetThere

Thursday, 19 Sep, 2003 0

Just three years after buying GetThere for a mammoth $700million, parent firm Sabre Holdings has announced that it is to fold the operations of the online corporate booking system into other parts of its business.

GetThere’s operations will be divided between Sabre Holding’s three remaining companies: Travelocity, Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions. Sabre said this would allow it “to take advantage of synergies and market opportunities” in the unmanaged and managed travel markets.

A spokesman told TravelMole that the decision did not mean the GetThere purchase had been a waste of money. He said: “The stuff that we bought – the technology, the client base – it’s all still there. Even the brand is still there. This is a reorganisation, it happens all the time. What is happening is that the GetThere business unit is being divided up among other Sabre businesses so that there is no duplication or waste.”

The restructure will see technology development for all GetThere products moving to Travelocity. Sabre said this would allow it to make maximum use of “talent, software and experience” and would also allow new products to be introduced to market more quickly.

GetThere’s fulfilment service – which issues the tickets as well as enabling the booking – will become part of Travelocity Business. A spokesman pointed out that Travelocity Business was only available in North America and “there are no plans to bring it to Europe.”

Responsiblility for marketing the core GetThere product will move to Sabre Travel Network. This effectively means that the entire European operation will be integrated with the Sabre Travel Network business. However Sabre Holdings has pledged to “continue to support connections to multiple GDSs.”

Finally the GetThere airline booking tool will be integrated into the Sabre Airline Solutions offerings.

It is not yet clear how many jobs will be lost as a result of the changes. Sabre said “an internal integration team” would be working on the details of the new structure over the coming weeks.