U.K. Business Travelers Raise Rail Use As Average Fares Fall

British business travelers increasingly are shifting to rail, where they are benefiting from falling average fares, according to figures disclosed to EuroBTN this week by the United Kingdom's two specialist corporate rail booking tool providers.

Evolvi said transactions on its tool jumped 18 percent in 2009, while theaverage ticket price fell from £69.33 to £65.55. Thetrainline told EuroBTN transactions were up 15 percent in the same period, and average ticket price fell 11 percent. However, Thetrainline director of sales Adrian Watts said average prices started to rise toward the end of 2009. He attributed this to a jump in ticket purchases by the reviving financial services sector, which tends to book more first class fares and closer to departure than other sectors.

Both tool providers cited numerous reasons for increased sales in a year when airlines suffered drastic falls in transaction numbers. These include improved journey times, better on-board facilities, such as Wi-Fi access, the improved quality of rail booking systems and a drive by U.K. corporations toward more environmentally friendly travel choices. Evolvi claimed that the 3.75 million bookings made through its system last year represented a savings of 150,000 tons in greenhouse gases compared with making the same journeys by car, and 139,000 tons fewer than comparable air journeys.

Further evidence of the growth of rail was provided in the annual KDS/Association of Corporate Travel Executive survey of 317 business travelers and travel buyers, published earlier this week, in which 42 percent of respondents said they switched journeys from air to rail in 2009. Most respondents to the international survey were in the United Kingdom and France.

Using online tools also encourages travelers to book lower advance fares and gives companies better control over rail spend, according to Evolvi trade relations director Jon Reeve. "With features like cost-center attribution, it puts rail booking in an environment which ticks procurement departments' aspirational boxes," he said. "There is a trend toward managing rail as part of an integrated travel program."

Evolvi has released upgrades to address these strategic needs, including a management information feature listing journey times for each ticket booked. "It enables managers to see the average duration of journeys and set policy around that," said Reeve. Evolvi has followed up by introducing a booking policy parameter that allows travellers to buy a first class ticket only for journeys above a prescribed duration.

Thetrainline claims it has a 55 percent share of the corporate rail tool market against 45 percent for Evolvi. In the past year, Amadeus has introduced Evolvi as the U.K. rail partner for its general corporate booking tool and GetThere has done the same with Thetrainline, which also has relationships with KDS and Traveldoo.

"We expect more of our corporate travel sales to be booked via this route," said Watts. "Our last two corporate account wins were both via general online booking tools."