Sabre’s 24-hour hackathon taps into booming Asia Pacific tech scene; Singaporean team awarded USD$10,000 for Best New Technology Application “Moments”
Developers, start-ups and technology and travel industry innovators from around Asia Pacific gathered in Singapore to code through the night during Sabre’s first Asia Pacific hackathon, ‘Destination Hack: Singapore’. The challenge? In 24-hours, conceptualise and program a new technology application with the scope to reinvent travel – from the way it’s shopped, sold and managed to how it’s experienced.
The winning App, branded “Moments”, was developed by a Singaporean team of techies and entrepreneurs. Designed to respond to a growing trend for ‘Bleisure’ travel in Asia Pacific, it’s intended to help travel agents plan and book more personalised trips tailored for travellers combining business and leisure in the same itinerary.
The App allows travel agents to access a ‘social profile’ created by the business traveller, shared through Sabre’s travel merchandising platform, to make relevant leisure activity ‘add-on’ recommendations such as tickets for concerts or local exhibitions. Powered by API integrations of existing travel Apps, including Sabre’s travel itinerary management tool TripCase and event booking platforms like Expedia and Eventbrite, these additional leisure bookings can be booked and added into the main travel itinerary, which also incorporates itemised expense tracking to distinguish between business and personal expenses.
Once approved, developers can sell new travel Apps, like the ones designed during this hackathon, through the Sabre Red App Centre which is a B2B App marketplace for travel agents to shop third party Apps that extend the capabilities of Sabre’s travel merchandising platform.
“We loved the idea of an App that addresses a very specific traveller group. A combination of socioeconomic factors and rapidly advancing technological enablement in this region is fuelling a rapid evolution in the way people travel, and we’re seeing a lot of new patterns and preferences emerging. It’s essential that travel businesses have the right technologies in place to adapt to these changing traveller demands,” commented Roshan Mendis, senior vice president for Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific.
Judges from Expedia, Ctrip, DHISCO and Sabre, rated the entries on a combination of technical quality, design, potential and originality criteria.
Greg Schulze, Senior Vice President, Commercial Strategy and Services for Expedia, commented that information is the key to travel selection. “As consumers, we’re getting smarter about travel options, with more information made available at our fingertips. We often ask ourselves at Expedia – how can we leverage our investment in technology and data, so that every traveller can find the trip they want – whether it’s their 1,000th or their first? 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.”