Eurostar Luring U.S. Passengers W/ Premium Service
<B>Eurostar Luring U.S. Passengers W/ Premium Service</B>
By Bruce Serlen
To encourage U.S.-based business travelers to travel on the high-speed Eurostar train between London and both Paris and Brussels--beyond being a time-efficient alternative to flying--the train system has introduced an added sweetener: premium class service.
Like the airlines with which it competes for business travelers, Eurostar now offers three distinct classes of service: premium first, first and standard. And tickets are less pricey than comparable-class airfares, with premium first one-way from London to Paris, for example, costing $369.
"When it comes to service and comfort, premium class is meant to provide every amenity that time-pressured business travelers expect when they travel by air," said Joseph Fiorenza, vice president of business travel services for the Rail Europe Group, the U.S. marketing arm for Eurostar based in Boulder, Colo.
"First of all, premium class passengers are entitled to use the private lounges in the rail terminals, such as those in London's Waterloo Station, Paris' Gare du Nord and Brussels' Midi Station," Fiorenza said.
Checkin is up to 10 minutes before departure through a dedicated premium class ticket gate. These select passengers are seated in their own train car, which is serviced by special attendants.
"Plus, the fare includes a four-course meal that, at lunch and dinner, includes wine and champagne," said Scheherazade Zekri, head of international distribution for London-based Eurostar Group.
For the traveler who wants to relax during the trip, such perks as movie rentals were introduced in 2000, creating another airline service equivalent. "Travelers are given a pack when they board that includes the film selected, a portable DVD player and headphones," she said.
Even more appealing for time-pressed business travelers, there is a premium class taxi feature. "The train attendant calls ahead from the train to reserve a taxi, which then is waiting when the traveler disembarks," Fiorenza said. "Given how difficult it can be to hail a taxi on the street at peak times, this allows travelers to get to their business appointment in the least amount of time, with the least amount of stress."
Because of their accelerated speed and because they depart from a center city location and arrive at a center city location, such high-speed trains as the Eurostar have cut overall travel times considerably. The scheduled travel time for Eurostar's London to Paris, for example, is three hours. As track improvements continue to be made, this time will be reduced to two hours, 40 minutes by 2002. Scheduled time from London to Brussels, meanwhile, is two hours, 36 minutes. The on-time arrival record also is strong. "Roughly 87 percent of the Eurostar trains arrived on time or within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time through July 2000," Zekri said. This compared with an approximately 70 percent punctuality record for air flights for the same period.
Travel managers for U.S.-based companies, while aware of the time and cost savings, not to mention the new premium class amenities, may find themselves frustrated by the basic resistance on the part of travelers to traveling by any means other than air. Having crossed the Atlantic by air, business travelers are more inclined to think of air for any short-haul legs they need to make once on the continent. Indeed, they may well book all the air reservations at one time before they leave on the trip. On another level, the matter simply may be a communications issue--travelers may not fully appreciate the time-savings involved.
"For whatever reason, many U.S. travelers still think of train travel as inefficient," Fiorenza said. "This may be because there's really no train culture in the United States. Certainly, Amtrak is working hard to change that perception on the crowded Northeast corridor, with the recent launch of its high-speed Acela service."
High-speed trains compete most effectively with air travel over short distances, according to Fiorenza. "They make the most sense for trips of 300 to 350 miles, where the trains compete with short-haul aircraft," he said. "Resistance is greatest when the train ride is more than three hours. In fact, however, the comparable air flight might well end up taking longer when you factor in ground transportation to and from the airports from the city center, flight delays and the one-hour advance checkin for international flights."
To make inroads into the U.S.-based corporate market, Fiorenza and his team started negotiating preferred supplier agreements in 2000. "We started by negotiating with American Express, WorldTravel BTI and Rosenbluth International on behalf of their corporate accounts," Fiorenza said. Because the program was new, volume commitments don't begin until this year. Negotiated rates applied to two classes of service exclusively: premium first and first.
As high-speed train service has grown more prevalent in Europe over the years, its effect has been felt on air traffic accordingly. "In France, for example, every high-speed route introduced has captured a significant share of air traffic on the given route," said Dr. Gunther Ellwanger, director of high speed for the International Union of Railways, an industry trade group based in Paris.
The benefits of high-speed rail are actually two-fold, Ellwanger said. "Not only do new trains capture a substantial portion of air traffic, but overall passenger traffic increases on the route," he said.
In contrast to the United States, other countries have a long-ingrained train culture. "The Japanese, for example, love it. In fact, they pioneered high-speed trains," Fiorenza said. "Consequently, when Japanese business travelers go to Europe, they want to take the train, they don't have to be convinced."
Yet, operators of high-speed trains--Eurostar as well as the national lines, including the French-based TGV system and the Belgian-based Thalys system--don't necessarily see themselves as being in opposition to the airlines. To the contrary, they view the train service as a valuable complement to air service.
"Because each Eurostar train can accommodate 766 passengers, including the three classes of service, and there are up to 22 trains a day running on the London to Paris during peak periods, one Eurostar is like flying two Boeing 747s," Fiorenza said. "The airlines already are dealing with air traffic control congestion and mounting delays. If we stopped running the trains, they would be hard pressed to handle the increase in passengers.