Much has changed in the travel industry since Eurail appeared on the scene in 1959 – nowhere more notable than on the technology front.
When the Netherlands-based company, which supports both the Eurail and Interrail passes, began offering mobile passes alongside traditional paper passes in 2020, customer adoption was swift.
Now, more than 92% of pass sales via Eurail and Interrail’s websites are for a mobile pass, and Eurail is looking further into its digital future.
To that end, the company has unveiled a rebrand that pays tribute to Eurail’s heritage while embracing what’s next for rail travel.
Speaking with PhocusWire, Eurail business and growth development manager Yi Ding explains the idea behind the company’s new identity – which is based on the values of curiosity, flexibility and openness – as well as how else Eurail is looking to digitally evolve.
What prompted a Eurail rebrand?
In 2020, we introduced the Eurail Mobile Pass and then a new distribution platform and basically completed our first step in our transformation. In the tech world, we have a saying about “crossing the chasm.” Usually, to convert early adopters into a majority it would take perhaps many, many years, but for us it only took two years to see that over 92% of our customers are buying and using mobile passes instead of a paper pass.
For us, it’s proven a successful digital transformation over the past few years. And after that we think it’s important for us to always remain top of mind among our customers, especially in today’s competitive travel market.
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That’s why we decided to do a redesign to really align with our current product vision and current requirements of marketing in this digital-first age. Our redesign includes a completely new system including a new logo, new watermark and new color palette. We see it as necessary step for us to evolve and continuously adapt to changing customer needs.
As a product we have a strong name recognition, and we are striving to achieve the visual recognition too. That’s why our new logo is an abstract representation of a horizon, a terminal, a track and the movement representing the rail travel experience.
The new brand emphasizes the values of flexibility, openness and curiosity. We try to make our logo fun and try to deliver enjoyment of the trip through our new design system.
When was the last major rebrand for Eurail?
The last rebrand was 2014, 2015 – the year I joined the company seven or eight years ago. At that time, we tried to align two brands - Eurail and Interrail - and tried to align these two brands by giving them similar brand assets and identity. That’s the first step. Then in 2022 we did our rebrand aiming to deliver a modern brand aligning with the new vision to be more visual and expand our brand in this digital-first age.
How else has your marketing approach shifted?
Because we are still in crisis, especially in Europe where we are experiencing the war, what we are doing is currently suspending all the proactive media outreach for communicating this brand redesign, especially in Europe.
However, in overseas markets we see this new brand and new design as winning their heart – we see likes and comments on social media.
Rail travel has been a proven reliable way of transport throughout the pandemic.
Yi Ding - Eurail
We’re actually pushing the new brand and design system on the organic media such as LinkedIn. We also completely redesigned our website.
First, we’ve tried to organically deliver a fresh look to our customers, and of course the next step when the market is more stabilized – especially if the crisis is over hopefully – then we can be more active in promoting it in a celebratory way.
In the travel industry we are promoting peace, and we are making our contributions to make people more happy and hopeful of our future.
Along with the rebrand, have you added any new product functionalities?
Our mobile pass gives us additional marketing capability when it comes to the Eurail app. We completely rebranded the app, and alongside the redesign we have introduced new features through the app like indicated price for seat reservations, showing the carbon emissions through the My Trip section. We try to empower our travelers to unleash rail travel through their own hand.
In 2018, Eurail announced a partnership with GetYourGuide – how have you explored other partnership opportunities?
With GetYourGuide, they’re our cost-benefit partner. Basically our pass holders can enjoy certain discounts when buying tours and activities on GetYourGuide.
We are continuously expanding our partnerships, especially during this crisis, to work together to meet our customer needs. With the new capabilities with the new distribution platform, we are actually looking for new distribution partners to be able to provide our mobile pass to American travelers. In 2020 and 2021 we completed integration with local partners … completed the API integration so they are able to distribute mobile passes.
We also completed our partnership agreement with Klook, allowing them to sell commissionable Eurail passes to their customers.
We are continuously expanding our partnerships and trying to serve customers in multiple ways.
How has COVID changed the viewpoint of rail as a sustainable mode of travel?
COVID actually accelerated the change aspect when it comes to sustainability, especially environmental sustainability. What we’ve seen is our customers, especially overseas travelers, they are trying to offset their carbon footprint. It’s inevitable that they have to travel long-haul using flights – traveling for example from the States to Europe - but they can use trains to offset their carbon footprint. This is a direction we want to work toward.
We introduced a new feature in the app just to show our travelers how much carbon emission they have actually saved traveling by train. That’s how we try to actually educate our travelers.
Rail travel has been a proven reliable way of transport throughout the pandemic and also an aspect to show sustainability, which is not only about the environment but also about social sustainability, the city, community. The railway segment is really servicing a smart community from this sense, which is all about social sustainability.