NEWTON, Mass. --
Italian national railway Trenitalia teamed with travel technology
firm Wandrian Inc. here to launch ItaliaRail.com, a new Web
storefront peddling Italian and European rail passes and tickets.
Officials said the
site, at www.italiarail.com, offers the lowest possible rail
pass and ticket prices available in North America, as well as
online booking and seat reservations for rail travel across
Italy.
ItaliaRail.com was
created to make it as easy as possible to book Italian rail travel,
and make rail as ubiquitous and easy to book as air, car rentals
and hotels, said Mike Fuller, Wandrians president.
Further enhancements
to the site -- such as hotel, car and other add-on travel product
-- are in the works, said officials.
Wandrian -- which also
runs Railpass.com, a site
peddling Europe-wide rail passes -- sells
both continental European and British rail product as a subagent of
ACP Rail International, which is one of five North American sales
agents authorized by the Eurail Group rail consortium, and, in
addition, is BritRails U.S. representative.
Eurail passes and
tickets are also sold in the U.S. and Canada by Gullivers Travel
Associates, represented by New York-based Travel Bound, and Rail
Europe Group companies Rail Europe and DER.
In addition, Eurail
itself sells its passes -- but not point-to-point tickets -- online
at www.eurail.com. In 2004, Eurail sold $9 million worth
of its own passes at its site, and expects to do some $13 million
in online business there this year.
Italiarail.com is not
Trenitalias first independent marketing foray into the U.S. market;
back in the fall of 2000, it launched SIVE, its own electronic
booking and ticketing engine, distributed to authorized travel
agents via the Web.
Trenitalias interests
were also once represented in the U.S. by now-defunct Italy
specialist tour operator and former authorized Eurail sales agent
CIT Tours, the New York branch of Italian company Compagnia
Italiana Turismo.
To contact the
reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to Kenneth Kiesnoski
at [email protected].