Flight Centre and New Zealand-based technology specialist Serko expect big things from ‘Savi’, the artificial-intelligence-driven online booking platform they are developing to transform the online booking experience for business travellers.
A few days ago, when Serko announced it had signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Flight Centre, Serko raised its FY19 guidance range for revenue growth to 20%-30% above FY18 (from 15%-30% previously).
Savi will be exclusive to the corporate clients of FCM Travel Solutions, SME travel provider Corporate Traveller, academic travel business Campus Travel, and sports and entertainment travel specialist Stage and Screen.
Product leaders from Flight Centre’s corporate division have been working with platform developers from Serko to develop Savi, which they call “a re-imagination of the online booking experience as we know it”.
Executive general manager of Flight Centre’s corporate division, James Kavanagh, pointed out yesterday that Flight Centre was drawing on 40 years of experience in corporate, leisure and wholesale travel “while Serko has more than 25 years of travel technology experience across online booking and mobile applications, airline distribution, global distribution systems (GDS) and new distribution capability (NDC).
“Flight Centre’s corporate division was one of the pioneers in online booking technology with the release of e3 in the early 2000s and we were first to market with ‘Rapid Book’ – which is a single-screen booking technology that was developed in conjunction with Serko,” Kavanagh said.
“As a company, we make a significant annual investment on technology to support our clients.”
Savi will be released initially in Australia and New Zealand, though it could spread more widely. Serko said the LOI would “extend the existing partnership with FCTG’s corporate brands across Australia, New Zealand and Asia through to April 2022 at a minimum, and also includes an expansion in territory across North America to include USA, Canada and Mexico”.
Serko Limited recently dual-listed on the Australian Stock Exchange under the ticker SKO. Serko has been listed in New Zealand since 2014. It claimed the title of fastest growing stock on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in 2017.
Written by Peter Needham
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