GTMC rail research shows 70 per cent of 18-29-year-olds who travel by rail on business want to see the HS2 high-speed rail link built, compared to 56 per cent of respondents over 30 years old.
Rail ticketing platform Silver Rail has raised US$40 million in its latest round of funding. It is extending its booking technology to Asian rail operators.
OVERTAKING AT HIGH SPEED
Klaus Kreher is a commercial director for Travelport, overseeing its relationships with TMCs and suppliers, including rail companies, and with corporates direct. His brief is global, but is currently focused on Europe. He is also chair of the rail group of the European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA).
CONTINENTAL EUROPE is currently experiencing an “air-rail shift”, says Travelport’s Klaus Kreher, and he believes a significant tipping point will come in a few years time. “Internal research suggests that in 2012 there were 340 million journeys taken on Europe’s high-speed trains,” he says. “We think this will increase to some 420 million in 2016. In the same year we think that there will be 400 million intra-European air passengers, so high-speed rail will become the dominant mode of transport for short- haul journeys within Europe.” He adds some specific city-pair information to back this up: “On the Paris to Brussels route, air had a 75 per cent market share before Thalys launched its high-speed service between the two cities – now, air has effectively a zero per cent share.” High-speed rail will continue to
grow in Europe, Kreher predicts. The European Union is spending billions of euros supporting high-speed services as part of its Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) initiative. Brussels also wants “full deregulation of rail across Europe”, he says. With business travellers likely to have even greater choice of high- speed rail in the future, the need to address shortcomings in the booking process is pressing. Part of Kreher’s role with ETTSA is to try to introduce a set of standards which will harmonise the distribution of rail content. TMCs crave the standardisation to improve work-flow efficiencies. “Booking varies
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from system to system, and TMCs are constantly feeding back productivity as an issue around rail,” says Kreher. “Often, training is needed for the agent who is booking rail, which equates to cost. Then, remember that rail commissions are falling away, trending towards zero per cent, so a key question is: ‘How can we book rail profitably rather than as a loss-leader?’” He adds: “TMCs do not only book the domestic rail operator – they are often asked for international bookings. So, for example, a TMC in the UK might need to book Munich-Vienna. At the moment, the easiest way is to go direct to the train operator’s B2C site, which is not very efficient.” Kreher notes that negotiated corporate rates have existed for many years in the European rail sector, compared with the UK. He says that SNCF has special rates for certain companies, including the global GDSs. “But we’ve found that corporates tend to be loyal to their TMCs and would rather book these negotiated fares through the GDS rather the train company’s SBT,” he says. Merchandising is a buzz word in airline distribution, referring to the way in which inventory is displayed to the agent. Better pictures, more details and fare families are all upsell opportunities for the TMC, but Kreher says that ancillary revenue is not yet a big part of the rail scene. “Airlines have unbundled the
product, whereas most rail companies include add-ons, such as wifi or a window seat, in the price,” he says. “But as train companies start to compete with each other as well as with the airlines, merchandising and other aspects common to air will come into play. Loyalty schemes are also likely to emerge as the competition between air and rail intensifies.”
Klaus Kreher
of attention for integrating rail into a multi- category booking environment.” Innovations exist elsewhere. Martin Danzl
is manager of rail supply commerce at Sabre Travel Network, and he draws attention to a tool Sabre has launched with SNCF. “We developed this tool [called Sabre Rail SNCF] in-house,” he explains. “Going through an app was the best way for us to distribute SNCF graphically, and the app was also the slickest means of integrating SNCF content into Sabre.” The tool is available globally to any licensed agent using Sabre Red Workspace.
CONNECTIONS
The global distribution systems’ (GDS) ap- proach to rail reinforces their repositioning as travel technology providers rather than just travel distributors. In the UK, Sabre and Travelport both work with the Thetrainline. com and Evolvi. The two rail specialists carry out the heavy lifting by accessing the rail content, allowing Sabre and Travelport to link to the aggregators using API (application programming interface) technology. Simon Ferguson, UK and Ireland manag-
ing director for Travelport, says: “The difficulty with rail is that there’s little standardisation in terms of the technical infrastructure across the various train operating companies, so what we would need to integrate is difficult, to say the least – which is why we work with the aggregators.” Travelport’s Universal API is driving the
integration and providing the link from the aggregator to the corporate or TMC via the corporate booking tool. Ferguson adds: “Rail is important to us because it’s important to our customers. Clients such as BSI Capita have a lot of do- mestic business travel, and rail is a big part of that. What the TMCs want is to manage the complexity and ensure that rail bookings are quick and efficient, with manual input minimised and less steps in the process.” Negotiated rates are another aspect of
rail booking which falls short in the eyes of the buyer. “Most train companies have a monopoly on certain routes, so they are reluctant to discount when there isn’t an alternative,” says Ferguson. “If the buyer can show, for example, that a deal will stop people driving and get them on the train, then some are willing to listen, maybe offering soft ben- efits rather than better deals. Generally, the train operating companies need to mature to the needs of the corporate travel world.”
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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