Branson plans to be doing _inter-continental_ suborbital passenger flights within 3 years???

That's a heck of a lot more ambitious than anything I'd heard about. In terms of the engineering alone there's a huge difference between the delta-V required to zoom up to 100km and come right back down in the same spot (even the V-2 could do better than that) vs completing half an orbit. Not to mention a far more stressful thermal environment on the way down, since your velocity is so much higher.

Not to mention that I don't think the Virgin-Rutan effort is meant to provide reliable, timely passenger service. I don't think you'll be able to call them up and say, "I have an important meeting tomorrow morning, can I get a seat on this afternoon's rocket?".

Adventure tourism and time-sensitive business travel are very different markets, even if the ticket prices were the same.