Karryon
By: Mark Harada
September 17, 2024

As the CEO of Railbookers, Frank Marini is happy to talk shop. Right now, business for the global rail travel company is good – especially from Down Under. Bookings are tracking more than 50 per cent higher than last year and Australia represents the Railbookers’ second-fastest growing region globally. So all great news.

However, as a train travel aficionado, you get the feeling Frank would rather talk about the amazing rail product that’s actually out there, whether it’s the stuff he’s experienced firsthand or the journeys more Aussies need to just be made aware of.

Take US rail travel. It’s a relatively overlooked way of exploring and discovering Railbookers’ home turf. But if the trips are half as cool as Frank describes them, it’s an oversight that needs to be remedied.

In Canada and some parts of the Western US, rail trips with Via Rail and particularly, Rocky Mountaineer, have been wowing visitors for decades. Canada by rail is “huge” out of the Australian market, says Marini.

But for most of America, “we’re still educating everyone on where you can go in the US by rail on Amtrak Vacations, because rail in the US goes to 46 of the 48 contiguous states” (with the exception of South Dakota and Wyoming).

“So the network is there. And really, from an Australian perspective, it’s limitless,” Marini tells Karryon in an interview in Sydney.

“So we have everything from Route 66 by rail, which people don’t realise; the Grand Canyon, a lot of the National Parks you can hit by rail. From Seattle, you can go to Chicago, from San Fran to Chicago, and obviously, LA to Chicago. Even up the whole coast. You can literally do… Seattle all the way down to San Diego.”

“So there are so many different places to go in different combinations; in the west, in the middle, and even even on the east. So we’ve got a music cities tour, which is Chicago, then the rail down to Memphis and ending in New Orleans.”

And while “it’ll be more expensive, typically, than flying”, Marini says the trade-off is the unique experience.

“Like, if you’re coming down the coast… in California, you’re literally hugging the coast. It’s gorgeous.”

Slow and steady

Which leads us to the slow travel trend.

“What I find is they’re looking for a different experience… like, let’s do it by train, that’ll be fun. “It’s not that, you know, quick flight,” Marini tells Karryon.

“We can get on board, have a glass of wine. I don’t have to be driving or on a bus. And the fact that it’s slower, is almost an advantage. They’re not looking to rush. They’re looking to see things that you wouldn’t normally see sometimes, by car.

The Railbookers boss recalls a recent trip with Via Rail from Vancouver to Toronto – which while in Canada, is “similar in the US”.

“I was blown away by the wildlife we saw along the way, like you name it, buffalo, bald eagles,” he said.

Another relatively unknown rail region lies in South America, where Railbookers launched just last year.

“People started asking questions about rail [in South America], so we just launched it. It’s going well.”

“And most of our stuff… comes from customers asking, ‘hey, since you do rail, can you do the rail here?’,” he explains.

A unique adventure

Railbookers even recently launched an around the world by rail adventure.

“This concept came up years ago… has anybody ever done around the world by rail? Can we do that? So we put it out there immediately,” he told media, including Karryon, at an intimate lunch in Sydney.

“And we’ve got passengers travelling currently, right now on that, and we’re announcing in October around the world for next year.”

All of this plays to one of Railbookers’ biggest strengths: its agility, and ability to follow demand – and create products accordingly.

“Everything we do is independent rail, so anything can be customised, whether it’s luxury rail down to national systems. We’re not a rail ticketer, we’re not an online travel agency, we’re not a group operator. We’re the only ones in the space,” Frank says.

That no doubt helps shape its relationships with travel agencies Down Under.

“Here in Australia and in New Zealand, we’re preferred with pretty much every major consortium in every market, because, again, there’s no one that does what we do. So we don’t really have competition, per se, because we’re not a booking portal.”

When it comes to Aussie booking patterns, Marini says the average trip length is getting longer (11.4 nights), the average sellout rate is going up, and “Australia has the highest conversion from quote to booking on luxury rail products out of any of our regions, which is amazing”.

But the Railbookers boss singles out one trend that “just blows me away still”.

“One of the biggest things that I want to point out here… 27 per cent of our bookings are booked and depart inside 90 days, out of Australia to Europe. That is nuts to me,” Marini states.

“We love and we excel at last-minute bookings. We’ll have travel advisors and customers that will call today, book today, that’ll leave today.”

Read the full article here.