International Rail and gapyear.com

breathe life into the rail industry

International Rail, the leading global rail specialist, has announced today that they are teaming up with gapyear.com to grow market share of the highly lucrative Australian, Canadian and US backpacker transport sector. By providing gapyear.com with a powerful global rail search engine, InternationalRail.com delivers global rail offerings direct to the independent long haul traveler.

Tom Griffiths founder of gapyear.com said
'Rail has unfortunately always been the ‘also ran’ in the independent travel market, coming a very poor third as a travel option in-country to travel by coach and car. Budget independent travellers with time on their hands find the coach passes incredibly useful and amazing value for money. Car and campervan trips are considered an adventure. With the growth of low-cost airlines, in particular in key backpacker destinations such as Australia and Canada, travel by train has fallen even further off the radar and is rarely considered, except by a romantic few excited by the prospect of a ‘great train journey’".

"The rail industry, to be honest, has also been a pain to work with! A fragmented offering with a lack of quality rail passes aimed at this market through multiple brands, sites and partnerships, we have found it impossible until now to deliver a clean, consistent offering to our users. However, International Rail, with their global offering have breathed new life into the rail sector by enabling sites like gapyear.com to place the rail passes neatly alongside their coach, car and plane rivals, finally making it an option which can be considered by all. With the resurgence in popularity for European adventures using the Inter-rail pass and a preference by independent travellers to take a train over a bus for long journeys, we expect to see substantial demand for their passes and point to point. For backpackers wanting to save the planet? Well, it also gets the green thumbs up!'

Omid Golshan, Vice President of eCommerce at International Rail comments,
'The long haul, independent travel market is an extremely important target market for us - we are very excited by the potential of working with gapyear.com. Not only do they have a great brand with a decade of experience, but they also unlock an untapped market for us of independent travellers aged 18 to 75. Put simply, those who travel long distances for long periods need access to efficient affordable rail transport and flexible passes. These are exactly the people who make up the gapyear.com community".

"Rail has always been the transportation of choice for independent travelers and with more flexible InterRail passes and even the chance to upgrade to first class, we are looking to significantly grow the older market with online rail pass booking capability on InternationalRail.com. As the new gapyear.com platform rolls out delivering new rail product to the older markets we will be working closely together to ensure that rail travel is on their radar.'

Ends

About International Rail
With a combination of several years’ Rail experience and cutting edge technology, International Rail offers the travel trade (www.railagent.co.uk) and consumers (www.internationalrail.com) a unique online rail booking tool featuring over 35 types of rail passes for travel in 30 countries and 66,000 city to city routes worldwide allowing users to check availability and make bookings in real time.

About Gapyear.com
Established in 1998, www.gapyear.com provides independent travellers with the opportunity to belong to an online community, share their experiences, seek good advice and purchase their travel items from a one-stop-shop. Gapyear.com continues to be the world’s largest gap year information source and community with over one and a half million users annually.

For more information, please contact:

Omid Golshan, Vice President of eCommerce, International Rail
Tel: +44 (0) 208 857 7882
Email: ogolshan@internationalrail.com

Tom Griffiths, Founder of Gapyear.com
Through Vicky Lee, Communication Manager
Tel: +44 (0) 1473 230 766