‘India is a fast moving market’
Pierre-Stephane Austi, CEO, Rail Europe, in an interview with , talks about new trends, initiatives, marketing activities and the growing potential of India as a market for Rail Europe. Excerpts:
Rail Europe’s top business generating markets...
Last year, our sales were up by 28 per cent over 2010. Australia remains on talk for Rail Europe (24 per cent growth), followed by Japan, South Korea, India and Brazil. There is a close competition between India, Brazil and China, but with the increase in sales and revenue we are certain that India will become our 3rd biggest source market by 2014.
India’s performance...
India has consistently registered an average growth of 18 per cent over the last five to six years. In terms of sales, we recorded a healthy business of 16 million Euros in 2011 and encourage them for selling more rail tickets. Our worldwide support centre for GSAs in India has also successfully completed the two-year trial period and now we are expanding it further with a bigger sales force.
We are also in the process of introducing an Indian version of Rail Europe website to get into the interior parts of the country. We can’t promote rail as a standalone product in India as its not attractive enough. Thus, we are inspiring Indians to explore the European destinations through railways.
Trends in the Indian market...
India is still a last minute booking market. We encourage all the travel partners and trav- ellers to benefit from attractive discounts by booking at least a month in advance from the date of departure. Moreover, we are also observing the shift from Indians buying point-topoint tickets instead of passes. This is a good sign which shows that more and more Indians are getting well versed with European trains and saving cost as point-to-point tickets are cheaper than passes. Also, Switzerland remains the hot favourite destination among Indians.