Eurail, which offers access to extensive rail networks in 28 European countries through Eurail Pass, is now increasing its focus on the India market. This is primarily due to India emerging as Eurail’s sixth largest and important market in 2016. In 2015, the company registered 50 per cent growth from India, which was the highest among all the top 10 markets.
Yi Ding, market manager – Asia, Eurail Group, said, “In 2016, we did internal analysis and framed strategies and this year we will prioritise India among the top markets. India is very important for us, as it is also the third biggest market for us in Asia. I am very confident about the potential in the India market, because according to forecasts, outbound travel from India to Europe will grow by seven per cent from this year – which will also benefit us. An interesting observation is that Indian travellers are least affected by external factors, which plays an important role in growth.”
Switzerland, Austria, France and Italy are currently the most popular routes among Indian travellers. “They usually combine France, Switzerland and Italy – this is a typical itinerary among Indians. Addtionally, Indian travellers also prefer London-Paris route,” added Ding.
Currently business traveller segment is not strong in Eurail’s customer base. The majority of customers is led by leisure travellers. Ding indicated that business travellers most likely choose Eurail Pass when they wish to combine their business trip with leisure travel in Europe.
The 28 European countries on Eurail’s coverage include Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Sweden among more. The comapany offers various types of passes such as city passes, passes based on combinations of countries or single country passes and packages including Swiss Package, Pre-Alpine Express, Chocolate Train, Glacier Express Tour etc.
“We have many new products, which we want to Indian travel agents to know about. We have already taken a lot of steps for the India market and we will further interact with the industry here to expand our offerings. We will also have more joint campaigns in India,” Ding informed.
