A team of Singapore based techies have ‘hacked’ their way to a prize of US$10,000 at Sabre Corp’s first ever Asia Pacific hackathon.
‘Destination Hack: Singapore’ challenged developers to create a new technology application which reinvents how travel is sold, managed and experienced.
The winning app called ‘Moments’ tapped into the growing ‘bleisure’ segment enabling travel agents plan and book more personalised trips mixing business and leisure within the same itinerary.
Moments allows agents to access a customer’s social profile to make leisure ‘add-on’ activity recommendations through sabre’s travel merchandising platform.
It is powered by APIs such as Sabre’s management tool TripCase and event booking tools like Expedia and Eventbrite which add activity elements into the main travel itinerary.
ait also has itemised expense tracking which differentiates business and leisure expenses components.
"We loved the idea of an app that addresses a very specific traveller group. It’s essential that travel businesses have the right technologies in place to adapt to these changing traveller demands," said Roshan Mendis, senior vice president for Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific.
The panel of judges was made up of executives from Expedia, Ctrip, DHISCO and Sabre.
"As consumers, we’re getting smarter about travel options, with more information made available at our fingertips. Many of the ideas we saw during the hack explored ways to filter this information to drive more relevant travel choices, which is where the whole travel experience begins," said Greg Schulze, senior vice president, commercial strategy and services for Expedia.
Winners were also awarded in a range of categories included Best Use of VR, Chatbot Challenge, Best Widget Idea for the new Sabre Red Workspace Panels and the Most Likely to Succeed.
