FALLING DEMAND from business travellers is being blamed for a seven per cent decline in Eurostar sales for the first half of this year. Chief executive Richard Brown said: "As with all businesses in the transport sector, we have long acknowledged that we would face challenging times this year. The fact is that some of our biggest business clients are from the financial and banking sectors, and it follows that as they tighten their travel budgets we, like the airlines, feel the effects."
Ticket sales for the six months to the end of June totalled £342.2 million. Traveller numbers were six per cent down on first-half 2008 at 4.34 million, but still 11 per cent up on 2007, before Eurostar moved to St Pancras International and the High Speed 1 rail line.
The train operating company's figures were bolstered by a four per cent rise in leisure sales, as well as by "substantial increases" in inbound traffic as travellers from Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands took advantage of sterling's weakness.
Brown says Eurostar is also seeing growing demand from the UK regions, with about one third of UK sales now generated from outside London.