Business travel has traditionally been a huge market treated almost with indifference by the rail industry.
In the UK at least, it did not - and too often still doesn't - matter to the train operating companies (TOCs) whether the traveller is on business or leisure. This was hardly the way to attract a market worth millions of pounds a year.
Compare this with the airlines which latched onto a number of fundamental points a generation ahead of the TOCs. For corporates and their TMCs, booking through computers was a lot easier than manually buying tickets. Providing management information of tickets bought meant companies could keep track of spend and use it in negotiating deals.
Using yield management practices meant airlines could charge higher prices for popular routes or times of the day. Most of all the business travel market brought in more revenue than leisure travellers.
The rail companies missed the lot of this and are now a struggling to catch up. It was this issue that the Amadeus Rail Forum in Nice last month addressed: the need to keep the customer, in this case both the corporate and their travellers, satisfied in what is a rapidly changing business.
As Diane Bouzebiba, head of Amadeus Rail Business Unit, told the 80 delegates, business travellers were "used to a certain level of service from airlines and they want rail to do the same."
With customers often enjoying a choice not only between modes of travel but also whether or not to use alternatives like video conferencing, giving the customers want they want becomes even more important.
There were two presentations at the Amadeus event which addressed this point. The first was from Thomas Mann, head of distribution for Swedish Rail (SJ), a relatively small state-owned network with 70,000 travellers a day and, in 2007, sales of SEK8.3bn (€878.6m).
For corporates and their travellers there was a three-pronged approach: access and booking as easy as possible, comfort for the traveller and information on “green” travel.
For the corporate, there was a variety of booking channels, ranging from SJ's web site to travel shops and self booking through the major GDSs and, perhaps just as importantly, flexible bookings. Changes can be made with the minimum of fuss.
SJ also offered corporates the opportunity to book car and taxis through their website. It had deals with Europcar - and was negotiating with other rentals companies - for the former and with a cab company for the second. It was also possible to book hotels through an arrangement with Hotelzon. As Mr Mann said, the aim was to cover the entire journey.
Corporates were provided with account cards and also had personal account managers who checked that deals were working properly.
For the traveller, there were loyalty schemes, internet and mobile phone access on trains and access to lounges.
Mr Mann gave as an example, a trip by a businesswoman from Norrköping to Stockholm. The trip was booked online and as SJ had her profile, it knew her preferences regarding seats and meals.
Confirmation of the trip was sent by SMS to her mobile phone. Hours before departure, she received a text asking her to confirm she is travelling. When she does so, a second SMS is sent giving her seat allocation and a bar code providing proof for travel which can be read by the train manager's hand held computer. No paper tickets are involved.
A colleague making a similar trip buys his ticket from an SJ sales outlet and collects it from a machine in the station. This ticket also has a bar code and a seat allocation.
In green terms, SJ provides an environmental impact calculator on its website enabling travellers to get an assessment of their carbon footprint for their journey. It also provides impact data for corporates.
The second presentation was from Jamel Chandoul, head of distribution and commercial systems for Eurostar. He outlined the benefits his high speed network expected to get from its inclusion on GDSs alongside airlines.
First and foremost for the corporate and its TMC, it made booking rail trips easier and less expensive as well as giving the agents access to productivity tools like traveller profiles.
But Mr Chandoul went on to list a series of other advantages Eurostar's customers were reaping. The booking process was integration with mid- and back-office reporting and it also ensured that Eurostar was given an equal show compared with airlines.
More crucially and this is where Eurostar differs from many other TOCs, it gave it access into the higher yielding business travel market. It also offered the ability to develop agreements with
strategic airline partners, notably those outside the Eurostar core territory which might want air/rail deals for their passengers.
There is also the chance that the broader approach will attract a wider range of customers who perhaps had not previously considered going by rail from London to Brussels or Paris.
The common ground between SJ and Eurostar is that their approach is pro-active. They have gone out and sought to attract a bigger market.
It is what businesses do. More TOCs need urgently to follow their example.