• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

Sabre's Rattling
Kirby's Korner · September 15, 2000

It's not often that you get to say goodbye to an old friend twice -- permanently.

But there's a strange, virtual world out there -- and I'm not talking about cyberspace. Hundreds of years before anyone dreamed of the Internet, Western civilization created a world in which corporations can become people and, like people, can become friends.

In that world, I met GetThere.com, a company that supplies online travel booking services to other Web sites and to corporations that manage travel for their own employees.

Corporate travel clients include such giant companies as Xerox, Boeing, and Cisco Systems. Among the companies that sell travel, GetThere counts clients such as Trip.com and several airlines, including mega-carriers United and British Airways.

But I met GetThere when it was a baby, going under the name Internet Travel Network. When it stopped selling tickets directly to the public early this year, I mourned its demise then.

Now, GetThere is being bought by Sabre, one of the four huge global distribution systems that travel agents and other travel sellers connect to in order to sell tickets to the public. The business-travel portions of Sabre will merge with GetThere, keeping the GetThere name and headquarters in California. (Sabre is headquartered half a continent away in Texas.)

Consumers will never know the difference. GetThere and Sabre Business Travel Solutions operate behind the scenes, and you or I never see their names, even if we're traveling for a large corporation that uses one of their booking systems.

The travel industry is abuzz, however. The announcement of the merger was a surprise to most, even in an industry that leaks information like a sieve. And the pairing brings together odd bedfellows, with many GetThere clients using Sabre's rival, Galileo International, to complete travel booking requirements.

In all, this looks like a win for GetThere. The company's share prices were trading in the $12 range just before the merger announcement, well below the $30 range of last February before many technology stocks went south -- and below the initial stock offering price of $16 in November 1999. Sabre is offering nearly $18 per share.

The move also gives GetThere deep pockets to rely on, with at least the chance to obtain money to expand technology and marketing in search of other clients. A lack of sufficient funding was part of the reason GetThere switched from a consumer-direct to a business-to-business strategy in the first place.

In fact, the arrangement contemplated for the new Sabre organization puts GetThere at the top of the Sabre business-travel heap, with Gadi Maier, GetThere's chairman, president, and CEO, heading the combined operation. The new company will be the clear leader in the business-to-business travel arena, with no other firm within hailing distance.

Despite the upside, I'm saddened by the change. I saw the same type of change happen in my private life years ago, as Boomer friends headed off to business school, donning white shirts and ties when they entered the business world.

I'm glad my friends are healthy and prosperous. But there's nothing like those youthful days of experimentation and limitless challenge.

David Kirby is the content manager at startup company iJET.com and was the founding editor of Interactive Travel Report. His column appears on Friday. You can reach him at david@ticked.com.