Domestic United Kingdom rail tickets may become much easier to buy
in other countries following a decision by British rail operators to award international
sales licenses to Thetrainline and two other online vendors. Thetrainline head of international sales Ian Chaplin told BTN his company would use the license to start selling British rail
fares to corporate clients outside the United Kingdom directly and through travel
management companies and corporate booking tools with which it has
partnerships, including GetThere, KDS, Traveldoo and Cytric. Thetrainline also plans
to make available an application programming interface connection enabling TMCs
to sell through their own online systems.
The United Kingdom's Association of Train Operating Companies
awarded the other two licenses to RailGo, a subsidiary of the Flight Centre
Group—which also owns the multinational travel management company FCm Travel
Solutions—and RailEurope, the 100-year-old leisure-orientated U.K. arm of
French national rail operator SNCF.
Booking a European country's domestic rail tickets in any other
country is notoriously difficult, but ATOC commercial director David Mapp told BTN the new licenses should improve the
situation, allowing non-U.K. customers "to purchase the full range of U.K.
rail fares. It increases their choices and ease of purchase quite considerably.
We don't currently exploit the overseas business travel market fully."
Along with Evolvi, Thetrainline is one of two dominant corporate
rail booking tools in the United Kingdom. Corporate online booking tools, such
as GetThere and KDS, use Thetrainline to access U.K. rail inventory for U.K.
clients. Both Thetrainline and its corporate booking tool partners technically already
were able to offer U.K. rail to non-U.K. clients, but that rarely happened,
said Chaplin. Thetrainline had some customers in France and the Netherlands, he
said, and "we are going to throw much more effort at it now." Thetrainline
will earn more commission from rail operators for sales outside the U.K. than
inside.
Until ATOC awarded the three new licenses, which Mapp said are on a
trial basis "for two or three years," the exclusive overseas licensee
for U.K. rail was Canada-based ACP Rail International, which markets itself as
BritRail. Predominantly known for its leisure-based rail passes, ACP Rail
International will maintain its license, Mapp said.
Chaplin said Thetrainline also is conducting a "market-sizing
exercise" as it considers whether to start selling non-UK rail to its UK
customers. In addition, Thetrainline is negotiating on behalf of rail vendors
and the Guild of Travel Management Companies to create TAP-TSI, a telematics
standard intended to boost pan-European rail travel by ensuring European rail
operators can share timetables, tariffs and fulfillment processes.