As people get back into travelling again post the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of factors have changed at the margin. Travel is still as commoditised as it was before the pandemic, even though airfares have skyrocketed. There doesn’t appear to be any lack of demand for seats on aircraft, even though intuitively this seems wrong.
It’s as if people are determined to make up for the loss of travel during the pandemic, whatever the cost. Though the UK media talks about a cost-of-living crisis in Britain, that isn’t reflected at the major British airports, which seem to be bursting at the seams.
But not everyone is happy to be part of the crowd and to go back to the old way of doing things. A new type of traveller — one with lots of time on his or her hands — is emerging and demanding a style of luxury travel that the airlines can only dream of, even in their business and first class suites.
Luxury train travel, like upmarket cruise ships, is aimed at people with deep pockets and lots of spare time, so they will never be a threat to the package holiday crowd.
We’re talking about luxury rail travel, either overnight and longer or simply comfortable daytime travel. In Britain and Europe, travelling relatively long distances by train has always been an alternative to flying and when one factors in that train journeys are centre to centre, the overall time taken to get to one’s destination often doesn’t vary significantly from that of the same route by air once all connections have been considered.
So for example, the flying time from Edinburgh to London is about one hour by plane and about 4 hours by train. But flying involves having to be at the airport in good time for security and other checks and physically getting to and from the airport is often time-consuming. This all eats into any time advantage that flying might confer upon a traveller. Train journeys begin and terminate in city centres, and the four hours it takes to get there is roughly the same as on the plane, all other factors included.
A big premium for luxury travel
But this isn’t luxury travel. For that, there is a big premium to be paid. And a small but growing element is more than prepared to pay for this service. This reaches its zenith in Britain on the overnight sleepers — Caledonian Express between London and Scotland and the Night Riviera service between London and Penzance in Cornwall — and the super-luxury Pullman Belmond.
Ticket prices vary enormously depending on type of berth booked, but don’t expect to get away with less than £450 each way on the Caledonian Express for the 12-hour train journey between Euston and Inverness. And even a cursory glance at the website of these companies reveals that most dates between now and the next six months are already sold out for the most popular types of berths.
Probably the most famous long-distance luxury train route was The Orient Express that started in Paris and finished in Istanbul. This largely terminated in 2009, though it is still possible to travel on parts of the famous route.
North America has offered luxury long-distance train journeys for many years, with panoramic trips through the Rocky Mountains in Canada.
But for sheer outstanding natural beauty, not much comes close to SA’s very own luxury train, operated by Rovos Rail, which goes deep into Africa and Victoria Falls. And for a desert experience, the Desert Express in Namibia takes customers through the desert between Windhoek and Swakopmund.
The Blue Train, which mainly runs between Pretoria and Cape Town, has been bedevilled by all sorts of problems in recent years, from derailments to arson attacks. In its heyday, the Blue Train was arguably the world’s most luxurious long-distance train, but a lack of capital and attention to detail means that is no longer the case.
Luxury train travel, like upmarket cruise ships, is aimed at people with deep pockets and lots of spare time, so they will never be a threat to the package holiday crowd. But it’s a growing market nevertheless and one that more mature travellers naturally gravitate towards.
• Gilmour is an investment analyst.
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