Business travel’s return is in its infancy but among the fledgling
trends already identified is a growing shift away from air travel in favour of rail and
car hire.
This modal shift is a logical outcome at a time when what little
business travel there currently is, is largely domestic or short cross-border
trips within Europe.
“We do very little rail travel normally but since the pandemic
more and more people are asking to use it, especially within Europe,” said
Carol Fergus, global travel manager at Fidelity International.
Speaking at this week’s ITM Thrive 2.0 virtual event, Fergus
added: “There’s definitely been a shift with the pandemic and people wanting to
be safer. Sustainability is also a very big focus within Fidelity and as a
consequence it [rail] is one of the modes of travel that we are pushing
travellers to use as opposed to air.”
Fergus continued: “We’ve seen the same with car rental as
well where social distancing and being able to be isolated is easier. They’re both
areas where we’ve seen change as in the past we’ve had very low volumes.”
Fellow panellist Mark Plowright, head of sales and
distribution at LNER, said there’s “certainly been greater consideration of
rail throughout the pandemic”.
While sustainability had previously been the driving force
for modal shift to rail travel, passenger ‘safety’ is a whole new facet, with
increasing adoption reflective of “a collective approach by operators to get
consistent messages out there about safety and assurance,” said Plowright. “Operators
have a unique opportunity to capitalise on that.”
Meanwhile, David McNeill, AVP global corporate sales, EMEA & APAC at
Enterprise Holdings, also speaking at the ITM event, said he was one of the
industry’s “rare optimists” in the current environment. Enterprise is among a
number of car hire companies to report promising recovery and longer hire
periods during the post-pandemic recovery.
“For many years air and hotel has dominated but ground
transport has been the focus in recent months – it was the first to recover,”
said McNeill. “There’s been a modal shift in transportation because people are
moving around from their homes, not offices, and because of safety.
“The ability for us to sanitise every single vehicle between
rentals allows our customers and your travellers to control the environment in
which they travel which has become incredibly important.”
While there is data out there that highlights rail’s swifter
recovery versus air – TravelPerk said rail bookings outnumbered flight bookings by four to
one this summer, a reverse of normal patterns – passenger numbers nevertheless remain well
down in most markets.
In the UK, private car use has returned to pre-covid levels
but rail passenger numbers are only nearing 40 per cent with further growth expected
this autumn. Elsewhere, rail passenger numbers sit at 50 per cent in the
Netherlands but have returned to near normal levels in Denmark.
The anecdotal evidence of a shift to rail and car hire is
undoubtedly there but it’s a complicated picture. The industry has seen long-distance
rail travel growing its marketshare in a number of regions across Europe for several
years regardless of Covid-19, suggesting recent modal shift is simply the acceleration
of a pre-pandemic pattern.
Air passenger traffic between Stockholm and Copenhagen fell
seven per cent in the 12 months to June 2019, a trend attributed to ‘flygskam’,
or flight-shaming, while flights between Berlin and Nuremberg were discontinued
after the start of high-speed rail services between the two cities.
And last autumn, a UBS Global Aerospace and Airlines report
found 21 per cent of Europeans said they have reduced the number of flights they
take due to environmental concerns.
Eurostar, already capturing nearly 80 per cent of the market
between London and Paris and Brussels, has similar targets for its services
between the UK and the Netherlands which are currently “in the early teens” with
regards marketshare, says Eurostar’s Paul
Brindley, indirect sales and distribution.
“We’d like to be in the high 70s – that’s the ambition. If we
can double our marketshare in 2021 we’d be doing really well, but we know how
long it took us to get there with Paris and Brussels,” he says.
Long-distance rail also received a welcome boost in France
recently when the government’s bailout of Air France came with the condition
that the airline would not compete domestically on rail routes of up to four
hours. “It’s great for high-speed rail,” says Brindley, “and what we [operators]
really need to look at now is connectivity and throughfares.”
“The trend towards use of long-distance rail isn’t necessarily
a new thing,” Plowright asserts. “We’ve seen travel managers and business
travellers alike give more focus to rail as a result of it being a credible,
productive and sustainable alternative to other modes [of transport].
“Long-distance operators in particular have seen marginal gains
in recent years – and more. There’s also a been an historic perception that rail
travel is something that’s difficult to manage and this is now being addressed.
You only have to look at the investment being made by TMCs to deliver rail knowledge
and education.”
He continued: “Operators are all about modal shift now. We think
we have real genuine and valid reasons for shifting people to rail. If you’ve
already flirted with making that shift, there’s now no better time to do that than
while your traveller base isn’t quite the same and when behaviour is evidently
changing.”