Sabre and Yahoo! strengthen relationship

Sabre and Yahoo! today announced that Yahoo!, Sabre, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Travelocity, have entered into a long-term strategic alliance. The new agreement elevates the scope of Travelocity's current relationship with Yahoo! to a major alliance by including an extensive marketing services program, and by making services from Yahoo!'s Enterprise Solutions division available to Sabre. 

The companies also plan to jointly develop travel solutions for the millions of individuals, travel agents and travel suppliers that rely on the firms' extensive networks.

"This agreement represents a significant commitment of two industry leaders working together to provide increased value to consumers and the travel industry," said Terry Semel, Yahoo! CEO. "Yahoo! is focused on providing the best possible solutions for our clients and partners, and this demonstrates how companies can utilize Yahoo!'s powerful network in order to build and grow their leadership."

Web and wireless booking

Travelocity.com provides Internet and wireless reservations information for than 700 airlines, about 55,000 hotels and 50 car rental companies. In addition, Travelocity.com offers 6,500 vacation packages, tour and cruise departures and a vast database of destination and interest information. 

"By building on the strong Travelocity relationship with Yahoo!, Sabre can more broadly market travel and continue delivering value to suppliers and travelers across multiple distribution channels," said William J. Hannigan, chairman and chief executive officer, Sabre Holdings Corporation.

To take advantage of this opportunity, the alliance between Yahoo!, Sabre and Travelocity encompasses the following areas:

Yahoo! Travel and Travelocity:

Travelocity, the most popular travel site on the Web, will continue to be the exclusive air, car, and hotel booking engine on Yahoo! Travel. Together, Yahoo! and Travelocity intend to integrate Sabre's technology and content into Yahoo! Travel to further enhance the consumer experience. In an initial step to improve functionality and design, Yahoo! Travel has unveiled a redesigned front page that includes a new color scheme, header navigation, merchandising placement, and a more intuitive user interface.

In addition to this arrangement, Yahoo! and Travelocity will share transaction revenue for sales generated through Travelocity's air, car and hotel booking engine on Yahoo! Travel.

"Since 1997, Travelocity has provided Yahoo! Travel customers with industry-leading products and features designed to make their travel planning easy and convenient," said Sam Gilliland, president and CEO of Travelocity. "By deepening our already strong relationship, we remain focused on reaping the benefits of the online segment of the travel market which is expected to grow rapidly."

Marketing services 

Travelocity plans to work with Yahoo! to develop a comprehensive marketing services program that will feature contextual integration throughout the Yahoo! network via, among other things, traditional online advertising, keyword search, and direct marketing programs.

Sabre plans to work with Yahoo!'s Enterprise Solutions division, in order to develop broadcast and business communications solutions to support Sabre's network of 7,000 worldwide employees and 250,000 individual travel agents, and to jointly develop new travel solutions that are expected to be announced at a later date.

"Upon conducting an extensive review of some of the leading travel companies, we determined that Sabre and Travelocity's industry-leading products and services was the best fit for Yahoo! strategically and financially," said Rob Solomon, senior vice president of Yahoo!'s Commerce division. "We are excited about the possibilities of combining the established travel industry expertise of Sabre with Yahoo!'s leading global network of 237 million consumers."

Sabre owns Travelocity.com and GetThere, a leading provider of Web-based travel reservation systems for corporations and travel suppliers.

Yahoo! reaches more than 237 million individuals worldwide each month, and is the No. 1Internet brand globally. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!'s global network includes 25 world properties and is available in 13 languages.