Loss of speed, rail journey reappears in response to climate emergency and fuel prices. But, in France, the SNCF offer remains unsuitable for tourist requirements.
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Should we talk about sacrilege, high treason? In October 2021, the Michelin editions, empresses of the road map and the car tourist guide, published their first train guide by train, for “40 car -free trips”. Bibendum who pacts with the SNCF? We had not seen this from the Michelines and the tire, almost a century ago. The world leader in tire is in tune with the times: since 2020, Gallimard, Hachette, Ulysse or Lonely Planet have all borrowed the same rail groove, hoping to surf on the return in vogue of a disappeared practice in the last century.
Tourist entrepreneurs agree: the past year was that of the revival of luxury trains, night train or charter trains. In the Alps, local elected officials try to rotate the SNCF and the stations industry in order to put the skiers on the rails. The Puy du Fou has sold in four days the thousand reservations open for its high-end railway cruise, launched in the summer of 2023. A tour operator, nomad adventures, offers certain European stays in rail format, chosen by 10 % of Its customers for this first season. Its director, Fabrice del Taglia, believes that he can convert a third party, “as people are looking for a compromise between the desire to travel and refusal to issue carbon unnecessarily”.
a historic summer summer
liter of gasoline at more than 2 euros, traffic jams in airports, extension of climate awareness: the coming summer seems conducive to redo the train an object of tourist mobility, which it has stopped ‘has been for several decades. The SNCF, already exceeded by demand during spring bridges, is delighted with a historic summer with eight million tickets sold on its long distance trains, 10 % more than in 2019. The carrier released the double trains To offer 500,000 more seats than three years ago, targeted on Brittany, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. An offer still insufficient, since certain journeys have been sold out for several months on the weekends of Chasé-Roise, despite sometimes very high prices.
The same movement is observed on regional trains, underlines Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Travelers, with more occasional users than in 2019. The weekend, city dwellers of Center-Val de Loire or Ile -de-France take the train more willingly to get green. “We have long made a parallel between tourism and smart bison, observes Christophe Fanichet. This is what we try to influence, showing, for example with the Michelin guide, which can be done by train. is our work to be more tourism partner and identified by its actors as one of its elements. “
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