Rail is river cruising, just 10 years ago
Rail Plus has said that luxury rail has the same growth potential as river cruising.
“I see a lot of similarities between what European river cruising was 10 to 15 years ago and what luxury rail is,” Rail Plus chief executive James Dunne said.
“It is a similar kind of market who like being taken care of and want a higher level of service,” Dunne said.
Dunne also said that Australians are not travelling to just do rail journeys, and there is demand for tailor-made packages.
“I want to build an itinerary but rail must be the core component. We are not a wholesaler.”
Tailor Made Canada is their first foray into this market but Dunne said they have had trade interest in Japan packages as well.
“Rail is the element and we build around that, agents are asking for it,” Dunne said.
The behavior of clients has also changed, as Rail Plus issues less multi-country passes and more national rail passes, particularly in Italy and Spain.
“Australians are traveling more but more to particular regions – the spread of travel is more narrow,” Dunne said.
Meanwhile, one of Rail Plus’ main initiatives is trade education, with eight webinars online.
Dunne said this is very important due to a high level of consultant turnover.
This comes off the back of changes in Rail Plus’ technology to make bookings faster and easier for agents.
“Agents have a wealth of knowledge but are time poor,” Dunne said.
Rail Plus has started to focus on issuing e-tickets within minutes for clients.
“This is nothing revolutionary – it’s what the airlines do,” Dunne said.
The company has also taken a “primitive but practical step” to allow inventory to be dropped into agent’s back end system.
“Sometimes there’s not an awful lot of commission and the agent doesn’t have a lot of time,” Dunne said.
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