Texas-based Sabre officially opened its Boston Innovation Lab last week. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was among the guests who shared remarks during the event led by Sabre CEO Sean Menke and Sabre Labs president and former Google executive Sundar Narasimhan.
“Sabre has a long history of technology leadership in retailing, distribution and fulfillment of the $1.7 trillion travel marketplace,” Menke said in a statement. “Over the past two years, we have focused on reinvigorating and transforming Sabre to continue to accelerate innovation to the market. Today we take an important step in that journey by opening our Innovation Lab in Boston, where we look forward to exciting developments that will result from partnerships with our customers and technology partners.”
The innovation lab will serve as the headquarters for Sabre Labs, Sabre’s global research and development arm that explores novel uses of big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to shape the future of travel. Sabre strategically selected Boston’s popular Seaport District and plans to draw upon the city’s innovation economy powered by its world-renowned research institutions and community of leading technology companies.
“Boston was an obvious choice for the location of our innovation hub,” Narasimhan said. “It has a vibrant technology community and access to talent from the nation’s foremost technical universities. In this lab, our team of software engineers will work in close collaboration with Sabre’s product development teams and customers to accelerate ideas into next-generation solutions that reimagine the business of travel.”
Sabre’s technologies produced $3.9 billion in revenue in 2018, reflecting longstanding strengths in travel and technology. Sabre operates the world’s largest travel marketplace and processes more than $120 billion in travel spend annually. Its range of software-as-a-service solutions, from baggage tracking solutions to intelligent retailing offerings serve hundreds of airlines, more than 42,000 hotel properties, thousands of travel agencies, and many more players throughout the travel industry, including car rental companies and cruise lines.
The lab, located at 321 Summer St., is a 10,635-square-foot workspace that is expected to add 60 jobs to the Boston economy.