Eurostar, the high speed rail service between the united kingdom and mainland Europe today reported an encouraging begin to the year with growth in sales revenues through the first three months of the year. When compared with an identical period in 2012, sales revenues grew by 1% to £213 million (£211 million Q1 2012), while passenger numbers remained stable year-on-year at 2.23 million (2.24 million Q1 2012).
Solid performance in challenging environment
The ongoing economic uncertainty throughout Europe continues to steer business travel patterns chiefly as many organisations maintain an in depth eye on corporate travel budgets. However, regardless of a protracted period of unseasonably cold and iciness the ongoing resilience of Eurostar’s leisure travel market has helped deliver the cast performance in Q1 reported today.
Nicolas Petrovic, Chief Executive of Eurostar, said:
“This is an encouraging begin to the year regardless of the challenges posed by both the economy and the elements. Our sales revenues have grown during 1 / 4 which saw heavy snowfalls and a few of the coldest temperatures on record within the South of britain and northerly France. This quarter’s performance is testament to our enduring popularity with regular and primary time travellers alike.”
Continuing boom in international traffic
Supporting the delivery of an exceptional performance over the primary three months of the year, a lot of marketing initiatives both domestically and internationally have helped underpin the expansion in sales revenues.
In January, Eurostar ran its most successful consumer promotion ever with 150,000 seats available from only £59 return for travel between London and Paris, Brussels or Lille. Over the process the promotion sales exceeded even those made in the course of the ash cloud disruption in 2010, previously Eurostar’s strongest ever booking period.
Similarly, an ongoing discuss international marketing campaigns has delivered impressive growth in both passenger numbers and sales revenues for travel originating outside the european. Inside the first three months of the year non-EU originated sales revenues grew 10% while passenger numbers increased by 8% in comparison with the identical period in 2012.
Reflecting the increasing strategic importance of Eurostar’s website as a right away sales channel for passengers originating outside the ecu, total sales revenues generated via online bookings in Eurostar’s largest international market, america, have shown particularly strong growth within the first three months of the year, up 20%.
Ongoing investment to support growth
Further demonstrating its ongoing commitment to investment around the business, Eurostar recently took the wraps off its cutting-edge consumer facing website. It is a central component of Eurostar’s ambitious growth plans and has transformed the client experience when booking online.
The new website simplifies and accelerates the booking process and because launch has reduced the common period of time taken to book a ticket by greater than 40% from eight minutes to four and a half minutes.
The launch marks the primary stage of an important investment by Eurostar in digital technology that may see a raft of latest features added to the positioning over the arriving months.
Nicolas Petrovic continued:
“The transformation of eurostar.com is a part of a much broader investment in our business designed to make sure we continue to present our customers the absolute best end-to-end travel experience. As well as this investment in our ‘virtual shop-window’, our £700m programme of investment in our fleet of trains which encompasses the refurbishment of the present Eurostar fleet and the acquisition of 10 new trains is progressing well.”