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rail 39
plus all Dutch and Belgian stations. From April this will
apply to all Swiss stations. But as yet the technology
does not allow it across all seven operators.
Mercer says progress is driven by an increase
in the number of business travellers from the UK
travelling to European destinations other than Paris or
Brussels. “Holland and Cologne will be under four hours
from London and we are already seeing business traffic
from Holland to the UK increase,” he says. Mercer cites
Rotterdam as an example which is not well served by
air and is less than four hours from London.
Capita Business Travel’s head of sales, Raj Sachdave,
says he had seen an increase in the number of business
travellers willing to travel from Birmingham to Paris via
St Pancras. What helps is the preferential rate tickets
with Eurostar available to passengers travelling with
most domestic UK train operators. The move to
St Pancras in north London has also helped drive
business traffic from the north of the country.
RailTeam’s
European
Look beyond headline price hikes
network
Sachdave says the rail network has also benefited from
corporate belt-tightening as the train is traditionally
Passengers will also be able to collate their frequent thought of as a cheaper alternative to air, despite the
traveller loyalty points, access all the business lounges headline-grabbing fare increases every new year.
on the network and – a key improvement – hop onto “People still need to travel on business and some people
the next available train should they miss a connection will see the current economic situation as a prime
irrespective of ticket type. Another development is opportunity to expand into new markets, and the most
announcements English as well as the host language.
IF YOU BUY FAR
cost-effective way of doing that is by train,” he says.
In the next two months, Eurostar will be 100% Nigel Turner, industry affairs director at Carlson
e-ticketed, and the website will allow for online
ENOUGH IN
Wagonlit Travel, agrees: “The rail industry gets hit as
changes of ticket type and departure time. Eurostar is ADVANCE they put up rates at the start of the year, but there are
also trialling mobile phone ticketing, where travellers
YOU CAN GET
still plenty of advance purchase fares and discounted
show a barcode sent to their phone to retrieve a ticket.
DISCOUNTS IN
fares in the marketplace. If you purchase fares far
enough in advance you can get discounts in some cases
Rail’s holy grail
SOME CASES
of up to 80%. The rail market is still pretty strong and
The holy grail for RailTeam would be to offer seamless
OF UP TO 80%
one of the reasons for that is corporates are not just
ticketing across the network. Currently parts of the looking at price but also productivity.” A good point:
network can do this – for example, UK travellers can it’s widely recognised that you can get a lot more work
buy tickets via Eurostar to 95 destinations in France, done on a train than you can on a plane. L52159
ttgbusiness.com ❖ february/march 2009
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