The strong euro may make for empty tables and lonely bars in the restaurants and hostelries of Europe over the coming months, but the operator of high-speed rail services between the UK and the Continent expects its trains to remain full.

Eurostar was bullish about its prospects of wrestling business from airlines while withstanding economic woes and the reduced purchasing power of sterling in the eurozone. It announced a 25.2 per cent year-on-year jump in revenues to £178m ($351m) for the first three months of the year following the move of its London terminal from Waterloo to St Pancras.