16 years
Anything that promotes travel has the potential to boost hostels - and competition should lower prices. who knows, maybe the glory days of klaus' interrailing past will return?
Hostels and EU Railroad Competition
Hostel Trends and News
What do you think about the coming railroad competition in the EU? (story)
Under the newly-adopted legislation, international passenger rail networks within the 27-nation Union will have to welcome competitors from 2010, with centre-right German MEP Georg Jarzembowski saying "this will lead to more competition and more choice for the customers".
More about it on Gadling:
http://www.gadling.com/2008/09/15/the-changing-travel-industry-in-europe/
Virgin Atlantic is rumored to be interested in setting up a high-speed rail service, while German rail company Deutsche Bahn is looking into expanding its own network from Cologne to London. With this giant open-access experiment looming within the next two years, it will be interesting to observe how the European travel market continues to change and what it means for the traveling consumer.
What effect do you think it will have? Good for hostels?
- Comments
16 years
Anything that promotes travel has the potential to boost hostels - and competition should lower prices. who knows, maybe the glory days of klaus' interrailing past will return?
Interrailing was higher for us this summer, according to our guests' surveys.
Although I'd rather say flashpackers were decreasing, as a lot of hostels complained about the less tourists not only in town but in the regional countries as well... So maybe our hostel was better positioned... or else.
IMHO, competition will not bring cheaper prices, rather more services and ergonomic packages... it's harder to decrease prices for the railways as companies have to pay a track maintenance fee; which is already high due the costs of keeping up a large network.
Also it might cause some confusion for Interrailers. When I was interrailing in 2002, my pass was valid for the Danish State Railways but wasn't for the other rail company, which I had to pay separate. Imagine the same situation with 25 countries and multiple companies in each...
I'd rather believe budget bus companies should raise in the future, as it is safer and often cheaper as trains (especially overnight ones) and due the relatively smaller start investments, lower running costs and flexibility, they are more profitable market. Less investment, bigger profit margin than setting up a railway co.
Looking forward to see what's going to happen...
16 years
well, combined with the increase in fuel prices - and the odd collapse of an airline - i cant help but think rail travel is in a pretty good position these days. teh increase in high-speed services (imagine german ICE trains pulling into London... id be on one in a second) perhaps flashpackers may start using the train more often. maybe prices wont lower - but relatively speaking id be very surprised if they rise. even if they do start offering better packages, that could still translate into more flash/backpackers - luxury trains with a bit of flexibility could perhaps encourage 'weekers' rather than just 'weekenders'.
either way, will be interesting to see how it effects things.
i hate buses. thats pretty much all i have to say about that :p
16 years
... maybe the glory days of klaus' interrailing past will return?
The Deutsche Bahn is part of the game... don´t expect to much!
16 years
Anything that promotes travel has the potential to boost hostels - and competition should lower prices.
British railways were privatised in about 1997. They got far worse with regard to timekeeping etc, they may be getting better now.
But lower prices?? British train prices, with a few local exceptions, are in the luxury class. I can't afford to travel by train in Britain! Bus and car (for one person) are both well under the standard train price!!
So if this happens, expect backpackers to be forced onto the buses and planes.
16 years
This is right, the UK has fully privatized the rail network, but the prizes are the highest in Europe. According to a statistic I recently found in DER SPIEGEL, a 150 km rail ticket in the UK costs on average around € 70. Europe´s second-most-expensive country is Germany, where the same distance in a high-speed-ICE-train costs € 37. In most countries the rate is around € 20.
The problem is: those Virgin trains won´t travel because Deutsche Bahn owns the rails. They will charge so much for using them that no competitor will ever be able to pay it. Imagine a large airline would own all airports in a country. How much competition would there really be?
If we want competition, we would have to separate the rail infrastructure from the companies which actually run the trains. And study carefully what has ben done wrong in the UK - to avoid these mistakes. We´re a long way from that utopia. The Deutsche Bahn will never give up control of their infrastructure - they know exactly what would happen next.
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