The deal with Orbitz Worldwide-owned Ebookers will see SilverRail’s Silvercore integrated across 12 country sites in Europe, giving the agency its first foray into rail search and ticketing for multiple train operators on the continent.

Although Ebookers and Orbitz are now on a unified technology platform, Orbitz has not been included in the partnership.

As well as giving users the ability to book rail-only fares, Ebookers will be packaging tickets with hotels also available on the system.

SilverRail is hoping the deal will trigger a wave of interest around online travel agencies to start focusing on rail product, especially in Europe where high-speed train travel is seeing heavy investment by a string of countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The company, which was on the receiving end of a $5 million investment round in April this year, signed another significant deal a few months ago when Sabre picked it to power the rail search and booking provision on the GetThere platform.

Well, almost.

In a Wi-Fi-nurturing move, corporate-booking tool provider GetThere entered into a short-term exclusive arrangement with in-flight Wi-Fi provider Gogo to offer business travel clients exclusive pricing for Gogo Internet service.

Among the options that GetThere will be offering are annual passes for Gogo connectivity, and discounts on daily passes.

Gogo currently offers travelers an array of daily and monthly passes, but currently doesn’t offer annual passes other than through this GetThere deal.

The exclusive nature of the deal, however, expires at the end of 2011, according to GetThere and Gogo.

And, Gogo is actively looking to strike similar sorts of arrangements with travel management companies.

Of course, there is another deal out there: The Wi-Fi provider currently is running a giveaway for lifetime free Gogo service.

Representatives from GetThere, a Sabre brand, and Gogo declined to detail the discounts being offered through GetThere.

GetThere provides transcontinental Wi-Fi service on 1,200 aircraft from AirTran Airways, Delta Air Lines, Virgin America, Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways.

Speaking of transcontinental service, a lot of people are riding the rails these days in the US, which lags Europe in the high-speed rail department.

Nevertheless, national passenger rail provider Amtrak announced today it carried a record number of passengers — 30.2 million — in fiscal year 2011. And the record ridership amounted to a 5% increase compared with the prior fiscal year.

Amtrak cites the “continued growth of business travel on the high-speed Acela Express trains with free Wi-Fi service…” as among the reasons for the passenger boost.

Amtrak adds that “high gasoline prices “and effective marketing campaigns” were other contributing factors in establishing the new, all-time passenger record.

While GetThere is offering Gogo Wi-Fi service for travelers in managed travel programs, BusinessTravel.com,  a website in beta targeting the unmanaged business traveler, is offering a rebate of up to $20 for Wi-Fi services when the hotel stay is booked through the site.

The deal, good through the end of 2011, is for the site’s US and Canadian customers.

The promo code and other details are here.

It is two years since the study was last produced (interviews with 800 business travellers around the world, some so-called road warriors, others taking between four and seven trips a year, some with fewer journeys), and the results indicate how the mobile is starting to have a dramatic impact.

Highlights:

• 63% want to receive destination-specific offers from local businesses (up 85% in two years).
• 47% use smartphones daily to view or receive ads (a jump of 95% since 2009).
• 72% want to see hotels on a map (up 26%).
• 43% use a handset to access navigation tools.
• 71% want to receive driving directions back a particular location.

SVP of Sabre Travel Network, Chris Kroeger, says:

“Consumers already rely on their mobile devices to help them navigate their way through cities around the world.

“In the future, they’ll look for mobile services that are not only location-based but contextually-aware such as airport navigational tools with the ability to find in-airport businesses but also have deals and offers pushed to their smartphone.”

Other findings from the survey include:

• Two-thirds of travellers want to search and book hotel reservations.
• Another 66% would like to add hotel bookings to existing itineraries.
• 62% would like book car hire from a handset (up 32% from 2009).

Travelocity Business and GetThere are sister companies in the Sabre fold, but the Travelocity Business decision to branch out with Concur is hardly an earth-shaking move.

After all, says Travelocity Business president Yannis Karmis, GetThere supports multiple global distribution systems and not just the Sabre GDS, and the Sabre GDS supports booking tools from GetThere, Concur, Rearden, TRX and nuTravel.

Karmis says Travelocity Business currently is having discussions with potential clients who prefer to use Concur Travel, the booking tool, or Concur Expense.

“This is another dimension, another way to go out into the marketplace,” Karmis says.

Meanwhile, Joel Bailey, vice president of global operations at Travelocity Business, says Travelocity Business developed IntelliTask, a midoffice solution which sits on top of a GDS layer for queues and is designed to flag online bookings and assign agents when additional service is required.

IntelliTask uses a rules-based workflow management engine to asses factors such as who made the booking, whether it was made by a VIP traveler; the travel date; last date to ticket; the account; and the company’s division.

It then assigns the booking to offline travel agents with the most appropriate expertise, and tracks the entire process, Bailey says.

Previously, Travelocity Business relied on the queue model, “first in and first out,” Bailey says, adding that IntelliTask has spurred a 20% gain in productivity.

SilverRail will provide global rail content from the likes of the UK rail operators, SNCF in France, German DB, Canadian and US rail, as well as Eurostar services between the UK and continental Europe.

GetThere users will get access – via SilverRail SilverCore platform – to inventory, prices and schedules from all rail operators in the system, plus the ability to book tickets.

Perhaps most importantly will be the integration into the existing GetThere platform, so users can search, view, compare and book air and rail tickets in a single display.

SilverRail uses electronic tickets and also provides users with options to modify and cancel rail bookings through the system.

GetThere subscribers are said to be spending nearly $9 billion per year on travel.

It is probably in Europe, where rail travel is going through a revolution of sorts with the launch of new high-speed lines linking many of the major cities, where GetThere’s alliance with SilverRail will probably have the most impact.

GetThere, the Sabre-owned corporate booking tool, yesterday announced the introduction of its own mobile website solution, which facilitates hotel bookings in accordance with corporate policy. Road warriors using GetThere Mobile, however, will have to wait a bit for air and car rental booking capabilities, and integration of itinerary management functionality is under way, but not complete.

To build their respective mobile solutions, both Orbitz for Business and GetThere eschewed the downloadable apps route and used HTML5.

Orbitz for Business claims it is “the first major online travel company to launch an end-to-end mobile solution that allows business travelers to search and book flights, hotels and car rentals directly from any web-enabled smartphone.”

In addition to air, car and hotel bookings, the Orbitz for Business mobile website enables customers to track their trip details through My Trips, share their itineraries, and cancel reservations.

Users of the Orbitz for Business mobile site also can receive flight alerts and Traveler updates.

GetThere, Sabre’s corporate travel unit, enhanced GetThere Mobile, tapping HTML5 technology to enable the shopping and booking of hotels in accordance with corporations’ travel policies and preferences.

In addition, the mobile-website solution enables road warriors to view hotels on a map or via a listing, and they also can use one-click call functionality to phone a travel agency for assistance.

Paul Wiley, GetThere’s vice president of product partnerships and strategies, explains that some corporations and goverment agencies prohibit the use of downloadable apps, such as those available through TripCase, on company- or agency-issued phones.

Until now, GetThere has offered itinerary management services from Sabre’s TripCase to corporate clients, but GetThere plans to develop its own itinerary management solution — without requiring downloads for initial use and upgrades — and integrate it into GetThere mobile as a single solution, Wiley says.

However, GetThere will continue to offer TripCase to clients who want it.

Wiley says GetThere decided to use HTML5 for its mobile website to address clients’ compliance needs and because HTML5 is evolving and beginning to have the “look and feel” of downloadable apps.

Another advantage of HTML5, Wiley says, it that if offers single sign-on.

The GetThere Mobile service has just launched hotel booking features and plans to introduce air and rail later in 2011. There is no firm date for the launch of car-rental booking through GetThere Mobile, Wiley says.

Previously, the GetThere Mobile service was an informational solution without booking capabilities.

Wiley says many mobile solutions providers are beginning to use HTML5 and are moving away from reliance on downloadable apps.

Norm Rose, who owns Travel Tech Consulting, characterizes HTML5 as “the next-generation Web-authoring software,” adding that in 3-4 years it will “provide functionality equivalent to downloadable apps.”

“The bottom line is that any travel company developing mobile web apps should develop in HTML5, so GetThere is not unique but on the right path,” Rose says.

The booking tool, owned by Sabre, integrated consumer hotel reviews from sister company Travelocity and began collecting reviews from road warriors, too.

This is the first time that GetThere is displaying hotel reviews, and users can decide whether to view all reviews or critiques from business travelers only, says GetThere spokeswoman Heidi Castle.

“Reviews are displayed alongside policy controls and corporate preferencing displays so the employee can get what they need from a hotel, but still stay within their corporate travel policy,” Castle says.

Users can also click on a review and add their own comments about a property, GetThere says.

Out-of-policy icons also round out the picture, nudging business travelers along in their hotel choices.

While Travelport GDS added a surcharge on certain American Airlines flights and Expedia has made finding American Airlines fares a laborious task in the wake of the airline’s withdrawal from Orbitz, Sabre several days ago began making it difficult for employees to book American Airlines flights, according to an industry source outside Sabre.

When flights are searched using the company’s GetThere corporate-booking tool for Sabre employee travel, on many routes American Airlines flights appear very low in search results, and with a notation saying the booking is “subject to review.”

And when employees try to book the flight, another notation indicates that the booking is subject to review prior to ticketing.

This initiative impacts travel for Sabre employees traveling on company business and doesn’t affect any other GetThere clients.

Sabre spokeswoman Nancy St. Pierre says Sabre has done nothing to bias American flights for employee travel, but often displays carriers based on “economics and convenience.”

Sabre has not issued an edict that flying American Airlines is barred, St. Pierre says, adding, “we’re trying to maximize our travel spend.”

In any corporate booking tool, corporations select preferred carriers.

For Sabre, American appears no longer to be a favorite.

If Sabre is piling on in this GDS and online travel agency fight against American Airlines’ direct-connect push, it would hardly be surprising.

And, any Sabre actions against American highlights how far relations have deteriorated, especially given the historical special relationship between Sabre and American Airlines.

After all, American created the Sabre CRS in the 1960s and American’s parent, AMR Corp., only shed its majority stake in Sabre in 2000.

Both Sabre and American Airlines are headquartered in the Dallas area, and some Sabre employees long had flight privileges on American Airlines. As of 2007, almost 2,500 Sabre employees still had these privileges for non-revenue travel on American Airlines.

And, Sabre still hosts American’s internal reservation system, although the airline has signed a deal to transition to HP’s still-under-development Jetstream system.

Sabre has some 9,000 employees worldwide — and it appears as if the numbers taking American Airlines’ flights will diminish, at least in the near future.

GetThere says business travelers, depending on their industry, exchange 20% to 50% of all tickets annually, and its beefed-up Ticket Manager Exchange enables them to exchange a ticketed flight online, saving corporations big bucks and reducing the need for manual intervention.

GetThere has had ticket-exchange functionality in place since 2004, but the improved Ticket Manager Exchange, introduced in beta early this year, provides new features.

Paul Wiley, GetThere’s director of product and customer experience, says the company modified its existing ticket-exchange functionality through the use of a ticket exchange and refund engine [pdf] from ITA Software.

Enhancements, GetThere says, include the ability to make exchanges on partially flown trips and the presence of exchange cost calculations, among others.

One TMC which tested Ticket Manager Exchange during the beta period reports that online ticket exchanges increased as much as 50% since the introduction of the new features, GetThere says.

Part of the impetus for business travelers to exchange unused tickets is the “visual guilt” that the ticket exchange service employs, including unused- ticket messaging on the homepage and throughout the shopping process, Wiley says.

Ticket Manager Exchange works with multiple GDSs — and not just with the GDS offering from Sabre, GetThere’s parent — and it provides business travelers with the ability to exchange tickets mid-trip if their plans change for domestic and international flights.

Travelers also can execute exchanges for itineraries which use multiple airlines.

GeThere is making Ticket Manager Exchange available to corporations first in U.S. points of sale and the company plans to offer it to global points of sale beginning in the third quarter, Wiley says.

It’s all good for the environment and a smart move as GetThere is offering corporations access to Tata Communications’  public and private Telepresence rooms — replete with high-definition video and audio hook-ups — as a way to enhance efficiency and lower the boom on large corporate carbon footprints.

Still, it’s a bit of an ironic twist for a travel company, Sabre’s GetThere, to be discouraging, well, travel.

Tata’s telepresence tag line is: “Better than being there.”

Tata Communications and GetThere shortly will begin pilot tests of the program, and plan on a broader rollout later this year.

But, for leisure-travel consumers, it’s got a much longer way to go.

TripCase’s multi-GDS approach for business travel became apparent when it announced it will offer its mobile-messaging and itinerary-management services to corporations through sister company GetThere, starting in the third quarter.

From its early days, GetThere, a corporate-self booking tool, has used all of the major GDSs. GetThere’s footprint extends to 79 countries and it is used by most of the 100 largest corporate-travel programs in the U.S.

At rollout in the third quarter, GetThere Mobile Powered by TripCase, as it is branded, will automatically sync bookings with TripCase when the traveler’s corporation uses the Sabre GDS. If a traveler downloads TripCase and makes a booking through the Travelport Galileo, Apollo or Worldspan, or Amadeus GDSs, then there is no automatic sync and the traveler can forward their itineraries to TripCase.

But, TripCase and GetThere teams are working on PNR synchronization tools so an Amadeus or Travelport booking would likewise automatically be consolidated into a TripCase itinerary, the companies say.

They hope to have this multi-GDS PNR synchronization in place before the end of the year.

So, why isn’t this capability in place already?

Is it a matter of getting the other GDSs to sign on to the arrangement?

Not really, says Michael O’Connell, director of business development at TripCase, because GetThere has always been a multi-GDS solution.

“This is not a question of agreements with other GDSs,” O’Connell says. “It is more of an allocation of resources and time for development and testing to ensure a seamless experience for travelers.”

Although corporations, with their far-flung operations, likely demand this kind of multi-GDS approach, it remains to be seen whether Sabre, which offers its own GDS, will take the same approach with leisure travelers who use TripCase.

For now, if a leisure traveler uses TripCase and books a trip on Sabre’s Travelocity or any other company tied to the Sabre GDS, the booking gets automatically loaded into the user’s TripCase itinerary.

However, bookings made through Orbitz, which uses Worldspan and Apollo, don’t get automatically synched up. Consumers booking on Orbitz and other travel agencies not using the Sabre GDS, have to manually forward their itineraries to TripCase for inclusion.

I suspect that Sabre is not as amenable to leveling the GDS playing field at this juncture for leisure travelers as it is for GetThere’s corporate clients, who demand multi-GDS functionality.

When GetThere Mobile is introduced in the third quarter, business travelers will get the now-standard itinerary views and flight notifications.

Travel managers also will be able to send a message to all of their employees in a particular city in case of an emergency or other time-sensitive event.

The GetThere and TripCase teams are said also to be working on booking capabilities that adhere to corporate travel policies.

Such hotel-booking capability is slated to be in place by the end of 2010, and air and car booking is on the agenda for 2011, the companies say.

The pact formalizes the relationship between BCD Travel and GetThere as many BCD Travel clients already use GetThere.

In fact, GetThere says the tool is used by business travelers in 76 countries, and the majority of the 100 largest travel programs in the U.S. use GetThere.

GetThere says that BCD Travel, as a GetThere reseller, will be able to influence product enhancements and gets access to GetThere customer service resources.

BCD Travel, of course, already had an agreement with the GDS side of the Sabre business.