DISTRIBUTION / RAIL & HOTEL
that 45 per cent were dissatisfied with the availability of UK rail content in booking tools and a whopping 75 per cent were dissatisfied with availability of European rail content. In a similar survey of more than 150 travel managers earlier this year by BTN Europe, 31 per cent of respondents said rail content was limited or very limited, while just 29 per cent said it was very comprehensive. In comparison, 58 per cent of buyers rated their OBT’s air content very comprehensive. The EU isn’t happy with the obstacles to buying train tickets either. “Rail is our flagship mode of transport… however, it is also the one which faces the biggest hurdles,” said Walter Goetz, head of cabinet for the EU’s transport commissioner, at the GBTA Sustainability Summit in Brussels late last year. But rail distribution is not sitting still. Some nationalised operators are hiding behind the EU but, according to Sachdave, “the EU really wants to open up distribution.” Train operating companies are expanding cross
borders – Trenitalia has launched services in Spain and is planning to launch services in France in the next 18 months. Access to content does vary with the location of the booker. Someone sitting in the UK can book a trip between Frankfurt and Dusseldorf but won’t be able to reserve a seat or apply their BahnCard. By the same token, in Sweden a traveller might want a guaranteed seat and a prawn sandwich. SJ Trains does not extend the ability to book such content to someone sitting in Barcelona. As Sachdave points out, the key challenge is “how can I make sure they’re distributing the same content in their home markets and across borders?” Rail has always been strategically important to global distribution system Amadeus. Sam Abdou, the company’s executive vice president air, rail & global online, says: “It adds value to air content. A lot of rail providers, mostly in Europe – SNCF, ItaliaRail, Deutsche Bahn – are investing in more content but we need to have multi-modality – rail and flight
options on the same screen – when booking.” However, as Sachdave points out, this is sometimes already available for popular city pairs such as London-Paris or London- Edinburgh but how about when someone needs to travel between Lyon and Birmingham or Amsterdam and Manchester? With more people working virtually and more businesses setting up outside primary cities, the need for comparative shopping for travel between secondary cities is apparent. TECH SOLUTIONS Many years ago Amadeus launched Elgar to bridge UK and European markets when providing rail content. Technology in the form of TMCs and specialist rail tech companies such as Trainline, Silverrail, Evolvi and Amadeus (Travelport uses Trainline and Sabre has its own solution) is powering all these initiatives to normalise and extend access to rail content and get it into service streams.
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businesstravelnewseurope.com | SPRING 2023
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