Eurostar reveals plans for south of France expansion
Eurostar plans to increase its services to the south of France frrom 2015 after a strong start for the new route.
"We have seen a surge in booking from outside Europe and our new service to Provence has proved a great success with many services running at full capacity," said chief executive Nicolas Petrovic.
The service was trialled for eight weeks from May 4 to June 29. Overall, more than 90% of capacity was sold in the trial period and during the May half term the service was completely sold out.
Based on the success of the trial, Eurostar is working on plans to introduce a fuller, all year-round service to the South of France from 2015.
The rail operator said the success of the new route had helped it achieve strong growth in both passenger numbers and sales revenues in the first half of 2013.
In the first six months of the year total passenger numbers rose by 2% year-on-year to 4.9 million while sales revenues grew by 7% in the first half of the year to £453 million.
After a flat start to the year in which several extended periods of adverse weather impacted services, Eurostar has seen acceleration in the growth of traveller numbers in the second quarter with passenger traffic up 4% year-on-year.
It said growth has been most marked within the UK and international (passengers originating outside the EU) markets, reflecting recent signs of an improvement in the economic environment in these areas.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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