LNER goes international

Certainly the most aggressive in terms of railway marketing since the demise of Virgin Trains, Government-owned London North Eastern Railway (LNER) has launched an international website.

This has been welcomed by VisitBritain.

The timing was also smart, announced on 11 February to coincide with the removal of pre-departure testing and quarantine rules for vaccinated people arriving in England or Scotland.

In the move that expands LNER’s global market, customers in ten countries, including China, Japan, Spain, South Korea and Italy, are among the first to benefit when booking directly online.

LNER’s new search and booking engine offers international customers in those countries an option to purchase train tickets using their language and currency. The site is found automatically in the countries affected.

The website launch comes as LNER reintroduces its full timetable, excluding pre-planned engineering works.  The line, with its classic title, covers 956-miles of East Coast route.

Figures from the Office of Rail and Road further showed that LNER customer numbers in July to September 2021 recovered to 89.6% of pre-pandemic levels, nearly 20 percentage points higher than any other operator, with LNER working hard to build on that success.

Sally Balcombe, Chief Executive at VisitBritain said: “This new initiative will help to boost future bookings by making it much easier for international visitors to plan their trips. Removing barriers to travel also promotes a message of welcome and will encourage visitors to explore more, travel further and stay longer, helping to drive tourism across more of the country, boosting local economies”.

BTN tried it out from the Netherlands in Dutch.  It worked.

www.lner.co.uk

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