Imagine an app that tells airline staff you’re still clearing security when your flight is due to depart, or notifies you of special promotions as you approach an airport bookstore, or warns you if you’re in the wrong terminal for your connecting flight.
A new collaboration between AT&T and travel technology company Sabre Corp. aims to yield those capabilities and others like them in order to make travel more personalized and less stressful.
Announced this month, the partnership between AT&T and Sabre will leverage AT&T’s “Location Information Services (LIS) – Hybrid” solution to facilitate the development of location-based travel apps for airlines, airport retailers and other travel-related companies.
Here’s how it works: Using AT&T LIS Hybrid, developers can create apps that use GPS and Wi-Fi to deliver services to mobile users inside an invisible perimeter — called a “geo-fence” — that’s drawn around or within a specific location or landmark. Knowing when a traveler enters or leaves the geo-fence would allow travel suppliers to deliver personalized services and relevant offers based on the traveler’s real-time location, provided the user has agreed to share that location by opting in to the service.
“By applying cutting-edge technologies, coupled with data analytics and better intelligence, we can give travelers the personalized experience they have come to expect in today’s connected world,” Sarah Kennedy, director of Sabre Labs, Sabre’s technology incubator and research lab, said in a statement. “Together with AT&T, we will explore the role advanced location-based services can have in helping travel suppliers provide better, more personal service to their customers.”
Phase one of AT&T’s and Sabre’s pilot project is expected to be complete during the first half of 2014.
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