Sabre makes NASDAQ debut
CNN's Richard Quest speaks to Sabre CEO Tom Klein about their performance over the first few days on the market.
As shareholders at the company that owns Travelocity, something to celebrate this Easter Holiday.
Sabre shares continue to rise on NASDAQ trading on Thursday. It was a positive debut on the NASDAQ. Sabre rose up to 3%. They closed at 16.5 dollars. Sabre's known best for its online brands: Travelocity, Last Minute in the US, last.com in Europe. Sabre's software business is the engine of growth. It basically is a major computer system that runs airlines and hotel companies. I spoke to the Chief Exec Tom Klein on Thursday and I asked what the debate's taking place and the distribution about how companies like Sabre give you and me enough choice.
We provide our suppliers the ability to personalize products. Today we announced a few product launches just today. One was for airlines to be able of managing unique experiences and personalize travel to travelers which is what that NDC initiatives all about. And then today for hotels, we announced the ability post of the guest making the reservation to be able to push out specific offers based on that guest profiles. So we believe that that personalization trend is real and for a big complex industry like travel industry, it's gonna take software from companies like ours to make it happen. So, yeah, we are excited about that trend and we are working with IATA in a work group to deliver services their airlines that allow them to personalize products, because that's what consumers are saying they want to have.
Everybody in the entire industry is now watching with something more than curiosity. The result of cause of Malaysia 370, now you're not an airline, I understand that. But you're imbeded firmly in the industry and you know what people are thinking. And as we wait for further details on 370, how do you think this incident is going to change the industry?
Well, of course, the first thing is, yeah, for the families of the crew and the passengers on that plane, our hearts go out to them. Malaysia's a great customer of ours. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, technology is gonna be part of the solution and I think the debate that's going on in the industry right now is healthy and overlong haul will make the industry better. But again, I think technology is gonna be the answer and the airline industry will decide what makes the most sense of going forwards to make sure that situations like this sort aren't encoutered again.