BOOKING HIGH-SPEED RAIL SERVICES in Italy has been made simpler following an Amadeus agreement with national operator Trenitalia, and an exclusive deal for Rail Europe to sell the new high- speed Italo network. Although Eurostar has appeared with airline displays on GDS for several years, this is claimed to be the first time that TMCs can book rail alongside air without the rail operator facing the complex process of “becoming an airline” in GDS terms. According to an Amadeus study, high-speed rail will be more popular than air for business and leisure travel within Europe by 2020. The number of passengers
on Trenitalia’s AV high-speed service has grown rapidly, reaching 25 million in 2011. Thomas Drexler, head of Amadeus Rail, says: “The key to growth is delivering the type of access and availability that is common in the airline sector.” Rail Europe tickets can only be
booked online or through a call centre, but TMCs will also welcome the opportunity to book Italo trains, operated by Italian company NTV. Italo trains began running on April 28 in competition with Trenitalia. Initially, services run between Milan and Naples, calling at Bologna, Florence and the new state-of- the-art Tiburtina station in Rome. Services will be extended later this year to Venice, Turin and Salerno.
Concur offers By Martin Cowen 30
TRAVEL AND EXPENSE PROVIDER Concur has partnered with in-flight
connectivity specialist Gogo, to offer clients the chance to buy credits for in-flight wifi access when they book travel. Gogo provides online access on more than 1,500 commercial
TRAVELPORT HAS EXPANDED to 340,000 the number of hotels it distributes following a deal with two wholesalers. The company has signed contracts with hotel aggregators Hotelzon and Tourico Holidays for their inventories to be sold through Travelport Rooms and More. Hotelzon features more than 140,000 hotels worldwide, while Tourico has 57,000 merchant hotel agreements across more than 100 countries. Niklas Andreen, Travelport’s global vice-president of hospitality and partner marketing, said: “The case for developing Travelport Rooms and More was a strong one, as it complements our GDS hotel offering and benefits everyone in the supply chain.” Travelport set up last year Rooms
and More as a hotel booking platform, which searches for hotels across multiple websites.
IN BRIEF in-flight wifi booking
aircraft based in the US. All of Air Tran and Virgin America’s domestic fleet are included, as well as all domestic mainline Delta operations. Concur Travel search queries will now highlight which flights are Gogo wifi enabled, and is hoping that passengers will select
flights with access over those without.
Gogo offers flyers a number of payment options, ranging from hourly to annual, but Concur will select the best automatically, based on the itinerary, travellers’ expenses profile and, importantly, company policy.
■ LEAMINGTON SPA-BASED TMC Travel Management Group is rolling out cloud-based pre- and post-trip reporting tools, Open Book and Travel Spend, supplied by IT specialists 7R Group. The TMC’s account director Ian Currington said: “Being able to report ‘live’ pre-trip data gives us the tool to take us into tomorrow’s competitive market place.”