Travelling with Marc Francken - BetterWay Advisory

Can you please tell us about your journey with BetterWay Travel platform? What inspired you to tap into this market, which we may still consider as a niche?

“I've been working in online travel for nearly 15 years. I spent eight years at Expedia, and four years at Google, always focused on the travel side. Over time, I saw that many people want to travel more sustainably. A lot of them are eager to travel by train, but they often encounter certain blockers or hurdles that prevent them from doing so. For me this was an opportunity: to help remove those barriers and encourage more people to opt for train travel, ideally through our platform. I also know that tourism, and especially the transport component, is a significant contributor to CO2 emissions. Given my background in online travel, I felt a need to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions by helping more people shift from airplanes to trains.”

A shift to alternative transportation requires behavioural change on the demand side, which might be seen as a barrier. In your opinion, are travellers ready to make this change?

“Yes and no. What we've seen, and what research shows, is that a lot of people intend to travel more sustainably. More and more people are thinking about it, but there's still a big gap between considering it and doing it. In the last step, many still choose to go back to the default choice, which is flying. I do think that the more we educate and inspire people to travel sustainably, the more likely they are to act. Many areas must be improved. We know that price is still a key factor influencing why people choose airplanes over train tickets, and that must be addressed.

To answer your question: Yes, the demand is there. But it needs to be encouraged into action. That is where many stakeholders in the rail industry do need to step up and listen to the challenges consumers face when choosing train travel.”

We can already see a shift in the market. How would you describe the travellers who choose rail travel packages?

“That’s an interesting question. Like with any startup, before we began, we had to define our target audience, customer segment, and demographics. We defined them as conscious travellers: people aged 25 to 45, with a certain level of education and income, who are more aware of climate issues and the urgency of addressing climate change. This helped to sharpen our tone of voice and guided us in finding these people.

But the interesting thing is that we were seeing quite a mix of people visiting our website and booking their next train trip. During the period that our website was operational, we saw visitors ranging from 18 to over 60 years old booking their next train journey on BetterWay. It was interesting to see the difference between who we thought our customers would be and who they were.”

What were the challenges that you were facing when developing new train packages?

“When we started, we were used to working with airlines, where it is quite easy to access almost every single airline through a single API connection. In the train industry, however, it is slightly different. The interconnectivity between different rail operators still is not fully established. Many rail operators are focused on where to distribute their content, where to share their pricing, and who they want to collaborate with.

There is a lack of transparency and that is blocking consumer demand from those who want to travel more sustainably. Consumers want access to all the available choices. What are the touchpoints for people when deciding: where can I go by train and how can I book such a trip? What stations can I reach? How long will it take? What will it cost? How many stopovers are there? But now, it is still very difficult to piece together this puzzle because there are missing pieces. Many of these pieces are owned by rail operators who aren’t yet ready to integrate them. This is a major blocker that we have encountered.”

Many of the challenges you mention need development or innovation that must come from outside the tourism sector. But how do you, as a tourism service provider, respond to these challenges?

“That is a good question and it's not an easy one. I think, in any business, the starting point is: is there demand? And there's a lot of demand. People will continue to travel by train, which should encourage every stakeholder within the rail industry to recognise that demand, build business cases around it, and improve the way they operate. This could mean increasing capacity by running more trains from A to B, enhancing the in-train experience, or improving accessibility.

I think this is sometimes overlooked in the world of train travel: that demand is there. We need to focus on what consumers and travellers want and use that insight to remove friction points and create a better overall experience.”

What was your experience in cooperation with the train companies, and the hotels that need to be certified to be included in your travel packages?

“Working with hotels is relatively easy because the industry is mature in terms of where they can be found online, as well as in terms of pricing and availability. Hotels are happy when someone wants to sell their rooms - the more guests they can welcome, the better. They are clear about what they offer, and we can sell it. Many hotels also recognize the importance of sustainability, so you can see a real shift as they improve the way they operate – whether it is in managing energy or sourcing food. On the hotel side, it is less of an issue, and we could easily sell any sustainable hotel available through the data platform of BeCause.eco.

The situation is more problematic on the rail side. It comes down to the interconnectivity we mentioned earlier - it's still difficult to get people from A to B by train. Here is a call to rail operators: open up. Open up to any website that is willing to help you get people onto trains and do the marketing and business work for you. All you need to do is provide the capacity and pricing for tickets, and you can continue running your core business of operating trains. Websites like BetterWay can help get people on board. That would be a win-win. However, rail operators are not yet fully opening up and sharing their connections in a way that can facilitate the sale of the rail tickets.”

When it comes to creating awareness of the products that you were offering, what was your experience collaborating with destination management organisations, or national tourism organisations?

“BetterWay travel was operational in the period from 2022 to mid-2024. Our marketing strategy focused on driving change from within the industry and we were open to partnering with anyone in the travel industry who is also on a mission to elevate sustainable travel.

One of the things we started doing, and it was going well, was collaborating with various bloggers and content websites that inspire people. They show where they can go, and importantly, how they can travel more sustainably. We saw quite a lot of traffic coming to our website through these partnerships.

Cooperation with DMOs could have been interesting: helping to bring more visitors to their destinations by positioning them as sustainable places to travel. This is the way different partners can strengthen each other. The booking platform was not only helping people to understand where they can go, but also was enabling them to book their journey. By analysing booking data, it was possible to measure the number of people that could potentially visit a destination.”

Which partnerships that you had were truly impactful in terms of reaching your goals?

“Google is still a place where a lot of people start their journey when deciding where to book their travel, making it a key partner. We were working on being found organically and testing through paid search to determine what works and what doesn’t. This approach provided some interesting results and learning on what is working.

For instance, we were trying to attract customers that were showing an intent to fly to London or Berlin. We hypothesised that these people already want to visit these cities, so why not get them to our website and encourage them to shift to train travel?

However, the economics and return on investment were challenging. People were still set on flying to London or Berlin. While a shit to train travel is possible, the conversion rate was relatively low. Therefore, it was not worthwhile for us to invest heavily in those keywords.”

What data points were you monitoring or collecting at BetterWay?

“Data is key for any online business, including ours, and we were trying to measure everything we could. Luckily, there were plenty of tools available to help us in this. We had a clear view of where people were coming from, who they were, what they were searching for, what was working and what was not. We analysed the type of train journeys they chose, the number of stopovers, which price points were more appealing and what kind of hotels they preferred.

While sustainability is increasingly an important element in choosing accommodations, price was still playing a much bigger role in decision-making. We were continuously learning from this data.”

To what extent were you making use of external data sources?

“We were very interested in learning more about certain patterns or groups of people that might be worth targeting. However, in all honesty, it's not always easy to access those data sets or to share that kind of information. This could partly be due to data protection regulations in Europe. I do think that is an area where the industry could see significant improvement.”

Would you have any thoughts on how to improve information exchange processes, making it more open and transparent in the future?

“I think there needs to be an incentive for every contributor to share. By bringing the right parties together and creating a shared mission or agenda, various stakeholders can help each other. Now, I don't think there is an overarching organization capable of pulling this together, but from our point of view, there is a need for one. Establishing a positive spiral of sharing insights and data where possible can only help to increase the number of people opting for sustainable travel.”

Besides improving information exchange processes, what other possibilities do you see for the tourism and transportation sectors to jointly address some of the key challenges?

“Demand, and encouraging demand, is not, in my opinion, the main blocker for creating a positive spiral to get more people to opt for train travel. Many people want to travel by train, but there are limits on the number of seats or trains going in certain directions, which keeps prices relatively high. That puts people off. Why would someone pay €300 to travel to Berlin or London by train if they can fly for less than €100?

The more demand there is, the better it is for scaling capacity and improving the customer experience. There is a clear need to increase capacity and create an open market for newcomers to challenge the status quo. The more trains that can run in an open market, quality and service will improve, and the threshold for people to opt for train travel will drop significantly - that is what is needed. If you ask me what the number one improvement should be, it is that!”

Where do you think we currently stand?

“People often ask me why I chose to go into this space. I find it quite exciting because there's still so much work to be done. The market is highly fragmented, and I feel technology has a crucial role in bringing everything together, opening it up, and removing barriers. It was quite exciting to be at this relatively early stage of creating change. Was it hard? Yes. Was it challenging? Yes.

However, I remain optimistic. I think many people understand why train travel and sustainable travel need to happen. There is plenty of talk from all sides, but what we need now is more of a bias toward action. It starts with mutual understanding of what is possible. At some point, however, we need more action: budgets need to be allocated, and concrete steps taken to make real improvements.”

Recently, you have moved on to a new work challenge, closing the operation of BetterWay. What difficulties led to this decision?

“BetterWay.travel, unfortunately, didn’t take off because of the economics not adding up with relatively low conversion levels and us wanting to continue in a bootstrapped set up. One of the main USPs was to combine package rates of hotels with train tickets, creating a lower total price for travellers compared to booking separately. This price advantage wasn’t enough to encourage people to spend on average €750 per person, on a site that is less known and less credible compared to other, established players.”

What advice would you give to companies that would like to step into sustainable travel?

“What is key is listening to your customer – understanding what they want, what they care about, what they like, what they don't like. From there, you can build a product that truly solves a problem. It starts with the customer: fully understanding and unpacking the problems they face and then creating a solution to address those issues that people are willing to pay for. It is simple, but many people overlook the importance of diving deeply into the problems the travellers face today.”

Can you share more about your new career move in sustainable travel?

“My mission is still to help transform the travel industry from within, making it more sustainable. One of the main clients I am currently working for is a promising start-up called BeCause.eco, who are a leading sustainability data platform helping many travel and hospitality businesses to meet their sustainability goals. They work with some well-known brands like Booking.com, Google, TUI, EasyJet, Radisson, Corendon and SunWeb but are still scratching the surface as to what is possible. It is a different set up now working in a business-to-business environment but I see great potential in helping other travel and hospitality companies to make use of BeCause’s data and technology to offer more sustainable hotel choices and meet their sustainability goals.”

What is your vision for the future of tourism mobility?

“Travel is like running water - people will continue to travel. The key is designing the pipelines in a way that helps people understand how to travel more sustainably. I feel optimistic because the demand is there, which means we can make an impact. All parties need to come together and embrace this demand to create a better, more responsible way to travel, and that can only happen through collaboration. We can't do it alone. The more people team up, the better it will be across the board.”