Business Travel Trends in Asia Pacific - Video Interview with Brett Thorstad, Sabre

Dark/Light Mode (23/10/22)  As COVID19-related travel restrictions and requirements ease around the world, international air travel is gradually beginning to recover.

However, with so many of us now used to making online video calls with business colleagues, customers, family and friends, how have business trips - which involve a lot of planning, costs and time - been affected, and what trends is one of the world's most important travel industry engines, Sabre, currently seeing?

Brett Thorstad

On Wednesday, Brett Thorstad, Vice President of Agency Sales Asia Pacific at Sabre Travel Solutions, spoke with Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com to share the results of a recent business travel survey and to discuss the current business travel trends within the region.

Sabre surveyed approximately 600 corporate travel agents and TMCs in Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The survey was also translated from English into four languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

In this exclusive interview, filmed over Microsoft Teams, Brett explains what Sabre learned from the survey and why he feels the industry should be optimistic.

As part of Brett's job is looking after 'brick and mortar' agency sales within Asia Pacific, Steven asks how Sabre defines a 'brick and mortar' travel agency and what trends the company is seeing in that sector of the market.

We discuss business trips and you will learn how the length of trips has been affected, whether companies are saving costs by downgrading the class of air travel and hotel, what is happening in the battle between LCCs and FSCs, and whether Sabre was able to differentiate international business trips to domestic business trips in the survey.

Steven also asks whether business travellers are opting to take more direct flights or are using airlines which require a layover / transit, how the industry is promoting and developing more personalised services and what that means for TMCs and companies like Sabre.

We also discuss NDC and Steven asks what challenges Sabre is facing in attracting more airlines in Asia Pacific to adopt and expand their use of NDC in the marketplace. All that and much, much more in the video below.

Business Travel Trends in Asia Pacific - Interview with Brett Thorstad, Vice President Agency Sales APAC, Sabre Travel Solutions

PODCAST

See also: Future of Airline Distribution and NDC - Exclusive HD Video Interview with Yanik Hoyles, IATA.

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