Eurostar’s sales figures for July, August and September have just been released and show an   a 6.5%  increase. All looking good especially given that it is a depressed travel market in general - Richard Brown , Eurostar’s Chief Executive is rightly proud. However as normal there is an underside to this. The Short Break - Big Difference campaign , brilliantly put together by Ad Agency Fallon has driven sales but at a depressed Eurostar only price. Great for getting people to travel but not to make money ( also doesn’t really help Tour Operators like us as it’s only available to be booked through them. In other words if you are selling at that rate you really should be seeing an increase in people travelling . The increase in shoppers etc travelling from the Continent should also be a given in with the benefit of a weak pound  Also for a significant part of last September we all suffered with the aftermath of the fire in the Tunnel so you would expect sales this year to be higher.

Eurostar Departing Terminal

Eurostar’s business traffic should also have increased given that there are signs of a slow economic recovery but given that these month’s would have been slow on business sales anyway any increase will be from a lower base.

As always Short Breaks are supportive of our friends at Eurostar but their pressure to turn a profit is at times meaning that their aim and goals are at odds we how we see the Short Breaks market. Despite this we have also seen an increase in sales over the period but of over 40% which of course is good news for us but has largely been driven by an increase in sales to Disneyland Paris.

I fully expect there to be a bigger Eurostar increase when the next set of figures are released as it will be comparing  sales with a period during which the perfect storm of Tunnel Fire and the threat of Financial meltdown hit at the same time.