Eurostar gets set for passion on Valentine's weekend
-- More than 110,000 travellers will travel on Eurostar Love Trains
-- First ever high-speed dating between London and Paris
Eurostar, the high-speed passenger service that marries UK and the continent, is gearing up for a weekend of passion as 110,000 travellers choose Eurostar to celebrate romance this Valentine’s weekend. The Love Trains will also carry passionate people of a very different kind, as this year’s Valentine’s Day is set to coincide with Scotland’s rugby clash with France at the Stade de France.
Over 15 years of service, Eurostar has been playing an active role in creating many Anglo-French relationships. It is now offering a high-speed dating service, by invitation only, to students of the University of the Arts London (Europe's largest university for art, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts). With a bit of luck, the students will get the chance to meet their special one as the train whizzes through the countryside at 186mph, taking them the heart of the city known as the most romantic in the world – Paris!
Eurostar has laid on extra Love Trains to meet the high level of demand. This has been made possible thanks to the completion of the Channel Tunnel repairs earlier this week. Eurostar will restore its full, faster and more frequent service on Monday 23 February.
Eurostar’s Communications Director, Simon Montague, said: “Passion for a beloved one or a fervour for sport is without doubt inspiring people to travel on Eurostar. We are also looking forward to high-speed dating on board our trains! We hope that the event will be a success and it will be interesting to see whether it could be a model which could be developed for other speed dating events on selected Eurostar trains in the future”.
***ENDS***
Notes to Editors:
The high-speed dating event is organised in partnership with SpeedDater and the University of the Arts London Students' Union.
About Eurostar
1. Eurostar is the high-speed train service linking St Pancras International, Ebbsfleet International, Ashford International, Paris, Brussels, Lille, Calais, Disneyland Resort Paris, Avignon and the French Alps.
3. Eurostar has two intermediate stations in Kent, serving south east England:
- Ebbsfleet International close to junction 2 of the M25 and Bluewater shopping centre, with frequent services to Brussels and Paris, and with car parking, taxi and Avis car hire facilities.
- Ashford International, with daily services to Paris, Disneyland Resort Paris, Brussels (from 23 February) and Lille, and seasonal trains to the French Alps and Avignon.
Eurostar ticket holders can make connecting journeys to either Kent station for free from anywhere on the Southeastern trains network. They will also be able to connect with Southeastern’s high-speed domestic services, which are due to begin later this year.
4. Under its Tread Lightly environmental plan, Eurostar has set a target of reducing its CO2 emissions by 25% per traveller journey by 2012. Because emissions cannot yet be eliminated, Eurostar is also the world’s first train operator to make all journeys carbon neutral, at no extra cost to travellers. Research commissioned by Eurostar has shown that a Eurostar journey between London and Paris/Brussels generates one-tenth of the carbon dioxide of an equivalent flight.
For more information, please visit www.suarts.org
+44 (0)20 7514 6270
SpeedDater is the UK's leading singles events company.
SpeedDater was originally founded by Simon Prockter and Ben Tisdall in September 2002 and quickly established itself as the market leader in the sector.
In Feb 2004 SpeedDater launched its successful online dating site www.SpeedDateronline.co.uk. And in Feb 2005, after successfully running a number of holidays under the SpeedDater brand, launched SpeedBreaks www.SpeedBreaks.co.uk as a separate site.
SpeedDater Events and SpeedDater Online were acquired by EasyDate Ltd. in March 2008. Speedbreaks now operates as a separate business. SpeedDater now runs approx 70 events a month in over 25 cities across the UK and Ireland. While speed dating events are the core of the company, SpeedDater also introduced a range of activity based events in London including wine tasting, walks, bowling, cookery events plus lock and key parties with get between 300-400 people every 3 weeks.
Since Sept 2002, over 134,000 people have been speed dating at SpeedDater events across the UK.
For more information, please contact Claire Felstead (cf@redleafpr.com) or Sofia Colussi (sc@redleafpr.com):
Tel: +44 (0)20 7566 6700
Press releases
06/11/09 - ST PANCRAS INTERNATIONAL – LONDON’S GATEWAY TO WAR GRAVES AND BATTLEFIELDS IN BELGIUM AND NORTHERN FRANCE
03/11/09 - Industrial action on Belgian railways forces the cancellation of all Eurostar services between the UK and Brussels on Thursday 5 November 2009
15/10/09 - Signs of sales recovery as Eurostar heads towards 15th anniversary
05/10/09 - Eurostar launches "Trip planner" on eurostar.com
22/09/09 - High-speed rail streaks ahead in race to cut carbon dioxide emissions from travel
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