By J. Bruce Richardson, Corridor Rail Development Corporation; April 20, 2021
As a matter of fairness and gentlemanly conduct it’s important to acknowledge good when you see it. There can be no doubt one of the positive things that has happened during the current and past Amtrak administrations is the addition of former airline marketing and passenger services executives to the company.
The reality is, Amtrak’s advertising and marketing has never been better than it is right now. Amtrak is finally not the poor step-relation to the common carrier travel industry. Amtrak’s current use of excellent videos and print visuals does a good job of telling Amtrak’s story and making the prospect of traveling on Amtrak appealing to new passengers.
This doesn’t change the fact Amtrak remains America’s Best Kept Secret. Only a more generous advertising budget will accomplish the goal of dragging Amtrak fully into the American travel lexicon.
Amtrak has traditionally focused on selling coach travel to the masses (as small as those masses have been), and never really focused heavily on sleeping car sales.
It took a global pandemic for everyone to realize Amtrak has the only land-based travel accommodations which offer full privacy when traveling in sleeping cars. As fully sold out as those accommodations were before the pandemic, Amtrak can now probably sell twice the available inventory it has today.
In addition to marketing to the public Amtrak has greatly improved its press operation with meatier and more meaningful press releases. It’s been decades since some of the best Amtrak professionals left the company’s press relations ranks and they have been greatly missed. Today’s press releases have gone back to being professional and useful.
Even though the company is still pursuing unhelpful paths about claiming the Northeast Corridor is profitable, the rest of the emphasis the company is promoting is well done.
Amtrak has huge opportunities ahead of it as the travel industry revs back up this summer. The airwaves are once again filled with travel advertising and people who have been homebound for too long are anxious to hit the road again.
Amtrak is fortunate to have the former airline executives it has making sure Amtrak’s public face through advertising and marketing is as good as they have made it these past months.