Interview: Sabre’s Richard Addey Shares Insights on Enhancing Travel Experiences with AI

As the UK remains a vital market for Greece, both for business and leisure travel, Richard Addey, Sabre’s Senior Regional Director for Northern Europe and the Nordics, is set to address the evolving role of AI in travel at the 2024 ABTA Travel Convention of ABTA – The Travel Association in Costa Navarino in Messinia, Greece, this October.

Richard Addey

With a focus on Sabre’s AI-powered tools like Lodging AI and Travel AI, Addey will showcase how these technologies are enhancing travel agents’ ability to meet growing traveler demands and increase efficiency.

Addey highlights that Sabre’s AI solutions not only “deliver more personalized, seamless travel experiences” but also have a significant impact on improving hotel attachment rates (HAR) — a crucial topic for the Greek market. “For smaller, independent hotels, agents often struggle to offer suitable alternatives when a client’s preferred option is fully booked,” he explains to GTP Headlines. Sabre’s Lodging AI resolves this challenge by “instantly providing tailored alternatives” that match the traveler’s preferences, boosting HAR and reducing missed opportunities.

With Greece being a key destination for the UK market, these innovations could help travel agencies improve booking success and maximize revenue in a highly competitive sector. Ahead of ABTA’s flagship event, Richard Addey shares further insights into how Sabre’s AI tools are transforming travel and supporting the unique needs of the Greek market.

• GTP: What topics do you plan to discuss at ABTA’s UK travel event in Costa Navarino this October?
  

Richard Addey: We’ll focus on showing ABTA members how Sabre’s AI-powered solutions can truly make a difference in the way they operate. With tools like Sabre Travel AI, Lodging AI, and Shopping AI, we’re helping agents and tour operators deliver more personalized, seamless travel experiences while boosting efficiency. Our goal is to demonstrate how these technologies can assist ABTA members in offering great service and supporting their customers in a way that aligns with ABTA’s commitment to high standards. By making their operations smoother and more productive, they’ll be able to meet the growing demands of today’s travelers, whether it’s for business, leisure, or family trips.
Additionally, Sabre will introduce the prototype for Travel Email IQ, a solution currently being piloted with several agencies. This tool uses Sabre Travel APIs and generative AI to help agencies manage the large volume of travel requests they receive through email more efficiently. By automating the parsing and formatting of email inquiries, agencies can reduce manual interactions and process travel requests much faster, increasing both accuracy and customer satisfaction.

• GTP: Can you elaborate on the importance of hotel attachment rates (HAR) for the Greek travel market, particularly in the context of independent and small hotels?
  

Richard Addey: Let’s imagine you’re a travel agent with a client looking to book a unique independent hotel in Greece, but it’s fully booked. Finding a similar option that matches their style, location, and budget in seconds is tough. If you can’t offer an alternative immediately, the client might cancel the whole trip or settle for a standard brand hotel, which isn’t what they wanted. This is why hotel attachment rates —the percentage of bookings that include a hotel—are often low. It’s not that agents don’t have the options, but it’s hard to think of the right alternative quickly, especially for smaller, independent hotels.
Boosting HAR is crucial because it helps agencies keep clients happy with personalized options and increases revenue. For markets like Greece, where boutique hotels are key, improving HAR supports not only the agencies but also these small businesses, ensuring they stay competitive year-round.

• GTP: How does Sabre’s Lodging AI specifically address the challenges agents face when a client’s preferred hotel is fully booked?
  

Richard Addey: Sabre’s Lodging AI, built with Google Cloud’s AI technology, solves the issue of fully booked hotels by instantly providing tailored alternatives. It analyzes factors like location, and price in real time, pulling from multiple data sources to find the best match. This eliminates the need for agents to manually search and ensures they can offer high-quality options immediately, improving hotel attachment rates and keeping clients satisfied. The AI doesn’t just automate the search; it refines the results in real time based on the specific needs of each traveler. This seamless capability not only improves HAR but also enhances the overall booking experience by allowing agents to act quickly and efficiently.
Lodging AI provides a scoring system for each alternative property, evaluating up to 20 options and ranking them based on how closely they match the traveler’s preferences. This real-time scoring allows agents to quickly assess and present the most relevant alternatives, significantly improving the booking process.

• GTP: In what ways does Sabre’s AI technology tailor alternative hotel suggestions to match a client’s specific preferences and past behaviors?
  

Richard Addey: Sabre’s AI technology excels at quickly matching similar properties when a client’s preferred hotel is unavailable. Lodging AI analyzes key attributes like location, availability, style, amenities, and price to find alternatives that closely match the original request. This enables agents to offer suitable options that align with the client’s preferences, ensuring a seamless booking experience without compromising on quality. Lodging AI also integrates traveler and agency preferences, along with itinerary information, to prompt agents with hotel suggestions immediately after booking airfare. This automatic suggestion feature helps avoid missed opportunities to cross-sell hotels, improving hotel attachment rates in real-time.

• GTP: Could you share any success stories or case studies that highlight how Sabre’s Lodging AI has improved HAR for travel agencies?
  

Richard Addey: Yes, from an internal Sabre study showed that agencies using Lodging AI saw a noticeable improvement in their hotel bookings. By offering alternative lodging options when a client’s first choice wasn’t available, they were able to reduce abandoned bookings. In fact, when customers clicked on AI-suggested alternatives, the likelihood of securing the booking jumped by 13.63%. This shows how Lodging AI is helping agencies improve their cross-sell rates and close more bookings.
Lodging AI’s cross-sell functionality allows agents to identify previously booked air segments that are eligible for hotel stays and offer hotel options through confirmation or trip reminder emails. This feature has been crucial in boosting hotel attachment rates even after the initial booking is completed, offering a new way to generate additional revenue for agencies.

• GTP: What impact do you believe AI solutions like Sabre’s will have on the overall efficiency of UK travel agencies selling hotels in Greece?
  

Richard Addey: Sabre’s AI solutions are transforming how travel agencies operate, especially in markets like Greece, where small, independent hotels play a major role. For instance, in June 2023, GTP was reporting that over 200 family-owned hotels in Greece were being sold due to financial pressures like rising costs and inflation. These properties, despite offering unique and personalized experiences, are struggling to stay afloat. With AI solutions like Sabre’s Lodging AI, travel agencies can quickly match these smaller hotels with the right guests, helping them maintain occupancy and stay competitive. By streamlining the process of finding alternatives, even for independent properties, AI could provide crucial support to these hoteliers during tough economic times.

• GTP: How do you see the integration of AI in travel impacting the customer experience in the near future?
  

Richard Addey: The next step in the short term will be making every part of the journey smoother and more intuitive. Imagine no longer needing to scramble for options when plans change—AI can handle rebooking and offer personalized alternatives in real time. It’s not just about efficiency, though. The real impact will be in how AI learns to anticipate travelers’ preferences and proactively suggest what suits them best, making the overall experience more seamless and enjoyable. The deeper integration of AI will mean fewer disruptions, faster resolutions, and a more tailored travel experience from start to finish.
Travel Email IQ is a key example of this evolution. As it’s currently being piloted, it is designed to process travel requests sent via email quickly and accurately by using AI to parse scattered email content. By automating this process, agents can respond to new travel requests almost instantly, offering personalized travel options while reducing the manual effort that slows down traditional workflows.

• GTP: Looking ahead, what are Sabre’s future plans for enhancing AI solutions in the travel industry? How do you envision the role of AI evolving in the travel sector, especially as it pertains to hotel bookings and customer service?
  

Richard Addey: Looking ahead, Sabre is focusing on innovations that will refine customer service automation, predict disruptions, and streamline booking processes to make the experience even more seamless.
In markets like Greece, where, according to a 2024 Statista study, travel and tourism contribute over 19% of the GDP, AI will be key in handling real-time adjustments and minimizing disruptions. This evolution will ensure smoother experiences for both agencies and travelers, supporting the continued growth of the travel industry.
Lodging AI and Sabre’s AI-driven prototypes like Travel Email IQ will further automate agency workflows and enhance the efficiency of processing travel requests. These tools will reduce the need for manual data entry and improve accuracy in booking processes, especially in regions where high volumes of inquiries can overwhelm traditional systems.