Ecosia, a search engine that dedicates its profits to green initiatives, announced today a partnership with travel technology platform Omio to create a train travel booking product that will fund tree-planting and environmental protective measures.
“Ecosia Trains” will allow users in 15 countries – including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France – to search for train travel directly on the Ecosia search engine, which has 20 million users globally. The tool will automatically pop up via a keyword query search for trains or destinations where train travel is possible. Users can then search Omio's rail content directly within Ecosia before being redirected to Omio to book.
Rail providers on the new tool include Amtrak in the U.S., LNER, GWR and Avanti in the U.K., SNCF in France, OBB in Austria and Eurostar for cross-channel services. Omio’s platform offers various types of train travel including short and long distances, sleeper trains and regional and domestic options.
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The partnership between the Berlin-based companies will further Ecosia’s environmental goals, with 100% of the not-for-profit’s commissions for bookings going toward its green initiatives, which include tree-planting projects in biodiversity hotspots and areas affected by deforestation; regenerative agriculture projects; and investments into renewable energy. Ecosia has planted nearly 180 million trees across Brazil, Australia, the U.S., Uganda, Burkina Faso, Madagascar and Indonesia.
While receiving over 2 million search enquiries per month for train booking phrases across Europe, Ecosio saw clear user demand for easy-to-use, train travel booking tools, said Michael Metcalf, the company’s chief product officer.
“As the climate crisis intensifies, the demand for train travel - especially longer distance journeys that replace short and medium haul flights - is higher than ever. Aviation is a major cause of global greenhouse gas emissions, and a major driver of global warming,” he said. “Our users want choice over how they travel, and they want to travel sustainably - that’s evident in the sheer volume of searches we’re seeing each month on Ecosia. If a healthy proportion of the 2 million searches made for train journeys on Ecosia each month translate into bookings, this will allow us to invest in our other environmental initiatives pushing back against the climate emergency.”
A report from Omio in April reported a 20% increase in total train bookings over the first quarter of the year as compared with the same period in 2019, while flight bookings were down 54% over that span.
Last year Omio partnered with Uber to provide its inventory and technology to the ride-hailing company so that Uber users could search and book rail and coach trips via the app. That deal followed an $80 million fundraising round by Omio to drive global expansion.