Eurostar Group, incorporating Thalys and Eurostar, today revealed the new brand to take the business forward, with a bold ambition to carry 30 million passengers a year by 2030 and become the backbone of sustainable travel in Europe.
From the end of 2023, all customer touchpoints including the business’ 51 trains will carry a sleek new look under the Eurostar brand name. Eurostar was selected due to high consumer awareness at both a European and global level, including overseas which continues to be a growing market high-speed rail services.
The new business has chosen an iconic star as its symbol and new logo inspired by l’Etoile du Nord, the original train service linking Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, the Brussels Expo 1958 Star and as a tribute to the first Eurostar logo. An animated spark graphic, acts as a compass symbolising the brand purpose to spark new opportunities, connecting people, places, businesses, and cultures across borders.
Under a single brand, Eurostar Group aims to spark a new golden age for high-speed rail connectivity in Europe, continuing to convert road and air travellers to rail at a time when passengers are keen to have greener travel options. A passenger’s carbon footprint from one flight between London and Amsterdam is the equivalent of seven Eurostar journeys,* and as the largest international high-speed rail network in Western Europe, crossing five countries and connecting 245 million people, there is huge potential to drive the modal shift to sustainable travel.
Eurostar Group passengers will have Europe at their fingertips, benefiting from a single loyalty programme covering all destinations across the current Eurostar and Thalys networks, as well as a single website and booking system from October 2023. For continental travellers, this will improve ease of booking direct and connecting journeys to London and for UK passengers it will offer simple, seamless connections between London and German destinations including Cologne.
With the alliance legally completed on 1st May 2022, today marks a milestone in the bringing together of the two businesses. Eurostar Group’s CEO Gwendoline Cazenave, who joined the business in October, has 20 years of experience in rail transport and is passionate about driving forward the business’s sustainable future. “We are excited to unveil our new brand today which will raise our visibility, help us become the backbone of sustainable high-speed rail in Europe and support us in our ambition to double the number of passengers over the next decade. Our customers will be able to experience the same quality of service they know and love across our unified network, linking iconic business and leisure destinations across five European countries. As Eurostar Group we are in a unique position to spark the next chapter for rail travel, to truly drive the modal shift from road and air to rail.”
Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs said: “We are proud to be engaged in Eurostar Group, the world’s leading high-speed rail company. This new Eurostar brand, with its unified network, is at the heart of our ambition to enable international rail development and to double its modal share by 2030. We have everything we need to succeed in this wonderful challenge!”
Alain Kraikovitch, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Eurostar Group said: “We set out a bold ambition: increase the number of passengers from 19 million in 2019 to 30 million in 2030. And accélérât the shift from air and road travel to high-speed rail travel on the combined Eurostar and Thalys network. We knew that the challenge of climate change and Europe’s growing demand for eco-responsible and sustainable travel presents a great opportunity for both companies in terms of development in the long term.”
The new brand identity was created by DesignStudio based on the heritage of Eurostar and Thalys, fit for the digital age and designed to help the business grow. It is deployed in a palette of ten colours, bringing in warmer shades representative of the Thalys brand and will be rolled out from October 2023.
Eurostar Group facts:
| Passenger numbers 2022 | 14.8 million (8.3 Eurostar, 6.5 Thalys) |
| Fleet | 51 trains (25 Eurostar, 26 Thalys) |
| Fastest journey times | London – Paris is 02h15
London-Brussels is 02h00 London – Lille is 01h30 London-Rotterdam is 03h13 London-Amsterdam is 03h52 Paris-Brussels is 01h22 Paris-Amsterdam is 03h19 Paris-Cologne is 03h20 Brussels-Amsterdam is 01h51 Brussels – Cologne is 01h47
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About Eurostar Group:
- Initiated in September 2019, the proposed alliance between Eurostar and Thalys, received approval from the European Commission at the end of March 2022 giving rise to holding company Eurostar Group on May 1, 2022.
- Eurostar Group is owned by SNCF Voyages Développement (55.75%), CDPQ (19.31%), the SNCB (18.50%) and funds managed by Federated Hermes Infrastructure (6.44%).
- The holding company is based in Brussels and holds 100% of the shares of Eurostar International Limited (Eurostar) and THI Factory SA (Thalys), which remain full-fledged railway companies and are headquartered in London and Brussels respectively.
- The ambition is to provide an attractive alternative to road and air transport and to accelerate the modal shift from 19 million passengers carried in 2019 to 30 million within 10 years.
- The new entity will offer the largest international high-speed network in Western Europe and has set itself the objective of deploying an ambitious environmental policy over the next few years.
