TravTalk India Online Magazine
Green travel is one of the main trends emerging these days and it is at the heart of Rail Europe’s product offering, says Bjorn Bender, CEO, Rail Europe. With rail journeys being the most efficient and sustainable way to travel within Europe, the company reveals that India has shown the strongest recovery yet besides the US market.
Hazel Jain
Bjorn Bender, CEO, Rail
Europe, was in India recently to meet the team as well as trade partners in Mumbai and New Delhi, and understand the requirements of the Indian market. Rail Europe celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. Speaking on this milestone, Bender says, “We are now an independent company which is very important for us. We have a very clear plan for the future. We are very happy to have been working with 15,000 partners from more than 70 countries and selling more than 100 brands of the European rail today. We sell one ticket every 12 seconds, which is also a result of the technology that we have developed.”
Continuing in this vein, he adds, “Everything is linked to technology today and that is why our current focus is to ensure that all travel agents have access to our booking portal ERA – Easy Rail Access – so that they can easily make booking for all the European train journeys. Travel agents can book through our GSAs, as most of them have integrated Rail Europe APIs in their booking platforms.”
This is also why, Bender adds, Rail Europe’s B2B platform is the technical heart of the company. “We are developing it currently because we are increasing offers month by month. We see demand for newer offers in terms of technology is increasing. We are integrating seat reservations for Eurail passes. This will be a huge step for us and the customers. We are also integrating the Austrian rail offers into ERA, and also integrating the panoramic trains mainly in Switzerland like Glacier Express and Bernina Express. These are high-demand products for the Indian market. And all this is related to technology. First, we need to integrate it from our partners because we see ourselves as a one-stop shop for European rails. On the other side, we need to provide it through state-of-the-art API solutions to the trade,” he says.
Recovery from India
The India market, as resilient as it is, has recovered pretty well for Rail Europe. Bender says, “We have recovered very well in terms of our goals that we had for 2022. I would like to point out that the strongest recovery besides the US market has been from India. We are very happy to see Indian travellers coming back. Initially, it was mainly FIT segment. But the groups are also slowly increasing so 2023 will be a very strong year for India. we think we may almost achieve 100 per cent recovery this year. Thus far, we have a 60-70 per cent recovery from India as compared to 2019 figures. But it depends on the product. So for instance, for point-to-point products, the passes are very strong such as Eurail and Swiss Travel Passes but also TGV trains, which are increasing heavily.” In terms of groups, it’s a mix of both MICE and families. From MICE point of view, it’s the incentive movement that has really taken off. He also shares that Rail Europe also saw a huge movement of around 400 pax recently on TGV Lyria or for connections between France and Switzerland.
Trends and sustainability
Sustainability is one of the main trends emerge these days and it is at the heart of our product offering, says Bender. “We see rail as the most efficient but also more sustainable way to travel in Europe. Moreover, demand for sustainable travel has been rising, specially post Covid, and we see this from the Indian market as well. We are very happy to support the mobility transition from individual transport on roads to rail,” he says.
