Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Virgin Trains
1. INTRODUCTION
Following a request from the Transport Committee
for information on group bookings, Virgin Trains is pleased to
provide some background details on the subject.
Group bookings are a popular form of ticket
buying, offering substantial discounts to passengers travelling
together and booking ahead. Virgin Trains views Group travel as
an important element in its overall business and as such treats
it as an opportunity to grow our passenger volumes and revenues.
We also recognise the social benefit offered
in enabling schoolchildren, students and others to experience
train travel.
2. GROUP TRAVEL
SCHEMES
Virgin Trains has a Group Travel team that specialises
in assisting customers buying Group tickets, not only for our
own trains, but for any rail journey in the UK.
We offer a discount of up to 60% on the price
of tickets for groups of ten or more passengers. For instance,
a journey from Liverpool to London that would cost £55 for
an individual passenger would cost only £18 for each member
of a group. The only stipulations are that tickets are booked
more than seven days in advance, and that members of the party
are named and travel together as a group.
This attracts a range of groups, such as conference
delegates, Hen and Stag parties and theatre outings. In addition,
we have arrangements for schools and colleges that offer a further
discount of 50% on the adult group fare. For instance, a school
pupil travelling as part of a group can travel from Liverpool
to London for £9 return. Again, the seven-day booking condition
applies.
3. CURRENT USAGE
We carry about 75,000 group travellers a year,
ranging in number from 10-200 passengers per group.
With more train services now running on each
of our networks, there are greater opportunities to attract more
passengers travelling as groups and we have some exciting plans
to make group travel even easier, as described below.
Virgin Trains has seen significant growth in
passenger numbers on its peak-time services and this has to be
taken into consideration when making seats available for groups,
especially when there are large numbers in a party. There are
some trains on which it is not possible to allow large groups
to book ahead, as this could deprive regular travellers of a seat,
especially those who value the opportunity to travel without advance
booking.
However, there are many opportunities, on peak
and especially off-peak trains, for seats to be made available
at a substantial discount and we are keen to promote these.
4. PLANS FOR
THE FUTURE
As explained in our original evidence, Virgin
Trains has always recognised the opportunities to attract more
passengers to the railways through innovative and competitive
fare deals.
Just as we have seen large numbers of individual
passengers attracted to our Value Advance fares, we are keen to
increase the amount of group travel in the coming months.
There are two initiatives being pursued, the
first of which is to make our Group pricing even more transparent
and more easily understood by our customers. In addition to this,
and in conjunction with the proposed launch of our new web site
in 2006, these new Group products can be bought via the web for
the first time, making the process of group booking easier for
our customers.
Secondly, we are reviewing the number of seats
we make available to groups to enable more spaces to be available
on many services. Although we cannot guarantee that these additional
group seats will be available on every train, it is clearly in
the interests of customers and ourselves to make availability
as attractive as possible, taking into account the continuing
need to protect space for "walk-up" customers. Virgin
Trains is also planning a range of promotional offers that we
believe will prove attractive to groups.
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