Guidelines on how to increase attractiveness for rail tourism

Railway tourism can be considered in general terms either a mode of transportation tourists use to reach a tourist destination1 or else a tourist product in itself.

Actually, in recent years, there is a growing trend aiming towards enhancement of travel experiences including nostalgia and a sense of history as well as added-value services on and off-board trains. This has resulted in a new batch of railway journeys being marketed as tourism products in themselves.

Railways and tourism have been close allies since early times. The relationship dates back to the mid nineteenth century, when both flourishing industries boosted each other’s growth. George Pullman’s creation of the first “hotel on wheels” in 1867 is a clear example of this mutually beneficial link that spread across the world. In the last decade of the nineteenth and early years of twentieth centuries, an investment fever caused railways to pop up all around the world. As a rule, where rail tracks were laid, hotels, international trade and tourism surely followed.