Travelocity.Com - Travelocity Enjoys Steady Growth, Merger With Preview Travel Creates A Category Leader, Striving For Profitability

Travelocity.com is a leading online travel Web site where travelers can make airline, hotel, and car rental reservations, book cruises and vacation packages, find information about destinations, and access a range of other travel-related services. It was launched in March 1996 as a joint venture of Sabre Interactive and Worldview Systems Corp. Sabre Interactive was a business unit of American Airlines' parent company AMR Corp. Sabre's principal business was to develop and install computer systems for travel agents. Sabre was the leading travel reservation system used by travel agents. In 1995 Sabre offered an easySabre service through online services CompuServe and Prodigy, giving consumers access to the same booking information available to travel agents. For 1997 Sabre reported $1.8 billion in revenue and $200 million in net income.

Worldview was a partnership formed by publisher Random House and regional Bell operating company (RBOC) Ameritech. Worldview provided content for Travelocity.com, while Sabre booked the airline reservations. Travelocity's strategy at first was to offer compelling content, including hotel recommendations, restaurant reviews, entertainment listings, weather reports, video clips, photos, maps, news, chat forums, and other information about specific destinations. Travelocity's Web server was connected to Worldview's multiple databases by Kiva's Enterprise Server software, which processed user requests and pulled down real-time data from Worldview's databases, then displayed it on the Travelocity site. In February 1997 Sabre Interactive bought out World-view's interest in Travelocity, with Worldview remaining as the site's featured provider of destination information.