Sabre is set to reshape the travel experience once again — this time by making hotel bookings smarter, more seamless, and more profitable for agents.

Sabre is sharpening its focus on helping agencies boost profitability through smarter hotel bookings, building on Content Services for Lodging – part of its global travel marketplace – while expanding AI capabilities within its Lodging AI solution. Lodging AI generates custom lodging options and serves up properties most likely to be booked. This evolution is the tech giant’s latest step in creating an end-to-end travel solution. The move aims to simplify the booking process for agencies while unlocking greater revenue potential through hotel sales.

Recently in Manila for the Top Agents Awards, Brett Thorstad, VP of Agency Sales and Airline Distribution in Asia Pacific, and Deepshikha Sehgal, Head of Lodging, Ground, and Sea for the APAC region, discussed Sabre’s growing ecosystem — from New Distribution Capability (NDC) to AI integration, data analytics, and hotel content services.

Hotels: The Underrated Revenue Stream

“Every agency I talk to tells me they want to book more hotels,” Thorstad shared. “Why? Because hotel bookings are more profitable. The commissions are high, and the opportunities are enormous.”

He emphasized the obvious: nearly every airline ticket comes with the need for an overnight stay. Yet, agencies often miss out on that upsell.

“When an agency already has the customer for air, why not book the hotel as well?”

Deepshikha added that lodging is often the biggest slice of a traveler’s spending — especially for business travelers, where 32% of the total spend goes to accommodation.

“It’s a cross-sell opportunity. The agency already acquired the customer through air. So why spend more on acquisition when you can upsell lodging?”

“Only 30% of hotel bookings are naturally attached to air bookings. That’s a huge missed opportunity. Our solution automates this process, helping agents catch what they’re otherwise leaving on the table,” she explained.

Sabre is continuing to enhance its expansive hotel content portfolio through partnerships with leading aggregators such as Booking.com and Expedia. With many travel agencies already integrated into Sabre’s workflows, the company is focused on simplifying the transition to a more modern, efficient hotel booking experience – making it easier for agencies to access richer content and streamline operations.

Sabre Lodging: An evolution

Sabre’s lodging platform is part of its evolving, expanding global travel marketplace. It helps agencies tap into a global network of 2 million lodging options worldwide — a timely need, as the WTTC forecasts global travel numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2025. By 2030, an estimated 1.8 billion people will be traveling annually.

NDC: Sabre’s Top Priority

At the heart of Sabre’s transformation is New Distribution Capability (NDC) — an IATA-developed program that enables airlines to distribute offers more efficiently, with less cost and more control.

“We expect to have 50 airlines active on NDC this year,” said Thorstad. “We’re also working on expanding LCC (low-cost carrier) content — a fast-growing segment that can no longer be ignored.”

Sabre is integrating NDC-powered airline content with hotel offerings on its global travel marketplace, enhanced by Sabre Direct Pay, an innovative and secure way to pay and get paid, including a virtual credit card service, soon to be available in the Philippine market.

Still, Thorstad acknowledged the complexity of content fragmentation:

“Airlines are adding more differentiated content — seats, meals, amenities. It’s a good thing, but it also makes bookings more complicated. Agents need tools to easily access this information. That’s why we’re essentially reinventing the GDS from the ground up.”

AI: The Future is (Expensive) Now

When Thorstad asked a room of agents if they were using AI in their operations, only one hand went up.

“AI is the buzzword, but it’s also expensive for agencies to develop and maintain AI solutions on their own. That’s why we’re doing the heavy lifting — building tools that any agency can plug into.”

Sabre has already developed 17 AI-powered microservices, which agencies can choose to plug-and-play, including predictive flight cancellation alerts, hotel recommendations, and conversational chatbots. These are being built by their dedicated global AI teams.

The Big Vision: One Supermarket for Travel Content

So, why Sabre?

Because, as Thorstad declared, “Our focus is on building a marketplace for everything — flights, hotels, ground, sea — accessible through a single API or Sabre’s 360 POS.”

Sabre aims to make the agent’s job easier, more efficient, and more profitable by bringing everything together in one unified platform. With everything integrated into one global travel marketplace, including extensive lodging content, the company is betting big on the future of hotel sales — and helping agencies to make sure no opportunity is left on the table.