Eurostar content to go on GetThere

Growing corporate demand for rail

Eurostar content is to be made available for users of the GetThere booking tool from next month.

The full content of the high speed cross channel train operator will be available on the Sabre-owned tool which is compatible with all four major GDSs, Sabre, Amadeus, Galileo and Worldspan.

Jason Geall, GetThere's director for the EMEA region, said demand for rail tickets for by corporate travellers had been growing for many months.

Mr Geall, formerly head of UK sales for Eurostar, said GetThere is looking to load up rail content from other countries like Germany and the Scandinavia region.

 Eurostar also announced that it had had a major rise in passengers from Germany and the Netherlands.

The train operator said the number of passengers from Germany had increased by 38% while those from the Netherlands were up 34% compared with 2008.

Eurostar said the travel time between London and the German city of Cologne via Brussels was four hours 40 minutes.

This would decrease when the new high speed line between the two continental cities was completed before the end of 2009.

The train travel time between London and Amsterdam, also via Brussels is five hours five minutes.

This also will come down when the high speed line between Amsterdam and Brussels opens, either late this year or early next.

Eurostar said the increase in passenger numbers reflected a "continuing Europe-wide trend from plane to train for short-haul journeys, reflecting the continuing expansion of the European high-speed rail network."

Nick Mercer, Eurostar's commercial director, said: "Travellers are now recognising the advantages of high-speed rail for longer trips across Europe.

"They're realising that it's possible to avoid the airports for journeys beyond Eurostar's own cities in Belgium and France, by making simple connections that carry them onward to destinations in neighbouring countries across Europe.

"With new high-speed lines in Germany and The Netherlands, Europe's high-speed rail network continues to expand.

"By 2020, passengers will be able to travel faster point-to-point by high-speed rail than by plane on nearly half of Europe's busiest air routes."

www.eurostar.com   www.getthere.com