Lionel Benbassat

Head of Marketing and Brand

Eurostar

Almost two decades ago Eurostar changed the way people travel from the UK to Paris and Brussels forever. Today their high-speed railway service has created a generation of travelers who think nothing of hopping on the train after breakfast and relaxing in a Parisian bistro by lunchtime. As Head of Marketing and Brand, Lionel Benbassat has stewarded Eurostar's brand promise : "To Inspire Real Connections."

Since 2013, Lionel has led Eurostar on a journey to build its customer experience and brand communications around the ambition of becoming the “Most Loved Travel Experience” by enabling real connections.  Lionel is “breaking the mold” by recognizing that the key success factor to achieving this shift of perception is by continually improving, tailoring and personalizing customers’ experience of the Eurostar brand - not only during the travel experience but also throughout the entire customer relationship management cycle.

 The challenge that Lionel has been pivotal in answering is how to capitalize on the myriad opportunities to build a deeper relationship with Eurostar's customers and prospects through an appropriate and manageable degree of personalization, while continuing to maintain broad reach and relevance.

Lionel has been passionately focusing on ensuring Eurostar becomes “Europe’s most loved travel experience” by  enabling real brand connections for travelers through Eurostar’s communications and through personalizing Eurostar’s relationship with its customers and prospects through more relevant and targeted messages. To that end, Lionel and his team have introduced new digital apps services and communicated their benefits to consumers while simultaneously reinforcing staff engagement by living and communicating Eurostar’s values internally. This is being realized by leveraging the power of data to build brand equity and revenue streams and a relentless focus on innovation, commercial rigor and customer orientation.

He feels strongly that "media and communications are proven drivers of both sales and advocacy for Eurostar, and managed properly they will play a critical role in helping deliver further growth and ROI for the company."  Under Lionel’s stewardship and thought leadership, Eurostar is relentlessly pursuing future-facing structures and processes to ensure all paid, owned and earned communication opportunities are fully integrated and utilized and that Eurostar’s paid offline and online media investments are working as efficiently and effectively as possible to drive the greatest return on Investment.

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