Orbitz for Business enabled corporate clients to search
schedules, book tickets and cancel reservations on Amtrak through an agreement
with rail content provider SilverRail Technologies.
The relationship with SilverRail should also produce further
functionality, Orbitz for Business president Frank Petito said Monday in a
briefing for The Beat. That could
include the ability to load negotiated rates, compare rail options with air
services on applicable city pairs and book rail content from suppliers outside
the United States.
"We've done rail before, but it's either been by a link
to Amtrak or we handled things through our full-service call center,"
Petito said. "This is really the first time we can offer online rail
bookings the way we provide air, car and hotel. What we're rolling out is the
first stage of an implementation of SilverRail."
Though Orbitz for Business initially is limiting the rail
offering to Amtrak, the company expects to expand rail bookings to Canadian and
European markets, as enabled by SilverRail.
"We absolutely have every intention of offering online
rail in Europe," Petito said. "While rail is really important,
particularly in the Northeast corridor, it can be more important in Europe. One
of the reasons we chose to work with SilverRail is non-U.S. rail is definitely
a key part of their strategy. Much like integrating rail and air, or at least
being able to compare the two, Europe is certainly going to be a part of our
future with rail."
SilverRail founder and CEO Aaron Gowell in early January said
the rail distribution firm this year planned to bulk up content and add new
distribution partners.
"It's still very early days," Gowell said.
"We've been around as a business for about 16 months. The core platform's
completely done. We've already connected into U.S. rail, which has been up and
running for a while. U.K. rail went live three months ago. We just finished
connecting to Belgian rail, which also has access to a bunch of other countries
around it. We're about to start connecting to Germany, and we're in discussions
with most of the other counties (in Europe). Because of the deregulation,
they've all been very open to working with us."
Though the company would not disclose the number of rail
partners it had signed as of January, Gowell expected more to join the fold
this year as the firm goes after "relevant" content.
"The goal is to have all of Europe done by the end of
2011," Gowell said. "Then, we'll move on to Asia. We're working on a
couple of rail lines in India, and China as well."
SilverRail expects to broaden its reach through
relationships with corporate booking tool providers and travel agencies. Gowell
said SilverRail content already was available through Rearden Commerce, which
powers booking engines for partners including American Express and Carlson
Wagonlit Travel.
"These companies that have never sold rail before,
they're always going to be the first customers who step up," Gowell said.
"It's a quick win there. Over time, as we get a critical mass of all the
rail lines that matter, then the big companies that sell a lot of rail today—like
a GDS—may be interested in us. We'll see."
Orbitz for Business officials would not describe the
economics of the deal, but Petito said, "Everything that we've done has
always been about delivering through technology highly cost effective solutions
for our customers and this will be no different."
Gowell in January described SilverRail's business model as
"a bit of a commission model," noting, "Most of the suppliers—even
tough we're a technology company—tend to look at business like this as just
another distributor. So, it typically works on a commission model. We'd like it
to be more of technology model. In the States, as an example, Amtrak treats us
as a real technology business, and we get paid on a per-transaction basis.
Whether it's per-transaction or commission, it comes down to the booking. So
that's the business model. We don't charge consumers anything. Sometimes we
charge corporations, depending on who it is and how much development work has
to get done."
This story originally was published by The Beat.