Frank, tell us a bit more about yourself, your route into the industry and your career, and what wisdom you'll be sharing at the conference.

I started in the travel industry in high school, working part-time in the mailroom at Collette Vacations before later moving into marketing as an intern while I was at university. I got a chance to go on a fam trip (yes, they even allowed the interns to go!) just as I was accepted into law school.

It was an amazing experience and I provided lots of feedback – what we should change based on watching the travel agents on the trip and what they liked and didn’t. Afterwards, I decided to put off law school and join Collette full-time.

At Collette, I worked in marketing, sales and international sales, opening up their first offices in the UK and Australia. From there, I became President of Contiki Holidays, one of The Travel Corporation’s brands.

Today, I am President and Chief Executive of Railbookers Group, the largest independent/FIT (fully independent travel) rail holiday tour operator worldwide operating the Railbookers and Amtrak Vacations brands. With staff in seven countries and 34 US states, we are also a fully-remote company.

We put together tailor-made, customised FIT rail holidays at scale. Our guests can travel to any destination, any day, for any length of time – if the train goes there, so do we. Our products include rail travel (as we partner with luxury, scenic and national operators), accommodation, sightseeing, transfers and more.

At the conference, I will be speaking about our space in FIT but also how we are using AI in our journey to help simplify the complexity of rail travel for our customers and travel advisors.

Rail really has broken through in the past few years. What do you put this down to? How are you managing demand? And how much more room for growth do you believe the sector has?

We are very lucky in our space as, in a sense, we created this space. There are escorted operators and there are rail ticketers, but not FIT rail holidays at scale.

The rail segment is like a sleeping giant – it’s much larger than most people think, and we are experiencing a renaissance of rail travel. Not just the wide variety of luxury, national and scenic rail, but more importantly, how flexible the space is and the huge demand for independent travel.

We are in a space of limitless leads and unlimited inventory – it’s the middle part we are always working on to handle our rocket growth. The infrastructure is already in place in our segment and rail travel is not a fad like other types that come in and out, such as glamping. It’s here to stay and getting bigger by the day.

It feels like rail has a huge opportunity to pitch and sell itself on the basis of it being a more sustainable, conscientious travel option. How is Railbookers using this strength? And how receptive are travellers to this?

We promote rail travel as being the third-most sustainable way to travel behind walking or a bicycle tour. However, the number one reason we hear from our customers is actually the flexibility and ease of travel by train.

Rail offers travel from city centre to city centre, versus going to an airport and then having to get into the city. In addition, we go every day the train runs while other types of travel run only on certain days. These are the top two reasons our guests travel with us.

Railbookers has worked with the UK travel trade for many years now – how do you assess the vitality of the UK agency sector? What’s it like working with the trade in the UK? And what developments are you working on to help agents here sell more rail?

We have been around for 54 years this year as an organisation. We acquired Railbookers, a UK company, 10 years ago as they were our customer selling our Amtrak Vacations brand. From that time, we enhanced and introduced the UK trade to our products and services worldwide and the support has been amazing.

We have already and continue to expand our UK Team. That group is led by Head of Trade Sales and Development Raj Mistry, General Manager Sam Bridge, and Director of Partnership Marketing Anna Davies.

We are helping introduce rail to agents; while many European destinations are well-established and served by trains, not all agents know of the places you can visit by rail. That includes Europe and beyond, as there are amazing destinations around the world served by rail.

What do you consider to be the single biggest issue or challenge facing the rail sector at this very moment? What actions are you taking to mitigate it? And what could be done to start addressing it?

Most travel agents and customers around the world are familiar with where the train goes based on where they live, but not what is possible by train in terms of destinations or experiences. This is our number one challenge and opportunity.

To mitigate and address this, we are heavy on marketing, sales training and overall education on what is possible to see by rail, both to consumers through our travel agent partners and then with our travel agent partners.

Are there any trends you foresee taking shape over the coming months or years, or existing ones you expect to peak? And how positive do you feel about the long-term vitality of the UK travel sector, both from a supplier and agency perspective.

I continue to see us and rail travel going from strength to strength as we see more and more tour operators, not just in the UK but globally, adding rail as a feature. That’s good for us all, and the expansion of many new luxury rail operators only enhances this. I don’t see a peak.

I am wildly positive on the long-term vitality of the UK travel sector. The base knowledge and understanding of rail and rail systems is already there, which differs from other source markets we are in where the learning curve is greater.

That said, there is opportunity for expansion in Europe – with more than 26,000 stations, the possibilities are far and wide on where to go and sightsee. But more so, the opportunity is to introduce the rest of the world’s destinations which are accessible by train.

For example, in the US, there are more than 500 stations that travel to 46 of the 48 contiguous states (excluding Wyoming and South Dakota). We also offer travel that connects the US and Canada, whether it’s the scenery of the Rockies in the West or the culture and cities of Eastern Canada.