BOOKWORMS curious to find the clues described in The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s best selling novel, swelled Eurostar passenger numbers to record levels last year.

The train operator yesterday revealed that 7.27 million passengers travelled on its services between London and Paris and Brussels, an increase of 15 per cent on 2003.

Eurostar’s passenger numbers were boosted by the company’s busiest Christmas and new year period on record, when the train operator ran 17 extra trains over the week and carried 250,000 travellers.

“We have certainly seen a Da Vinci Code effect, with people reading the novel then going to book a trip to Paris,” a spokesman for the group said.

The murder mystery story was the UK’s best-selling book of 2004 with 1.5 million sales.

Passengers were also tempted on to Eurostar because of shorter journey times. Higher passenger numbers helped revenues to climb 15 per cent to £433 million.

Eurostar said that its share of the London-Paris route rose to 68 per cent during the year, as airlines saw their passenger numbers fall. The train operator was also helped by British Airways’ decision to cut its service from Gatwick to Paris.

The train operator said that the French and Belgian subsidiaries of the company were expected to break even in 2007, with profitability following soon after. Profitability of the British arm would take longer to achieve.

Eurostar’s financial health will improve in 2006 when its payments to Eurotunnel, the Channel Tunnel operator, will fall by about £40 million — when the so-called Minimum Usage Charge for the tunnel expires.

The train operator, which is owned by the French company SNCF, its Belgian counterpart SNCB and Eurostar UK, is also expecting passenger numbers to increase in 2008, to about 8 million passengers a year, when cross Channel trains will terminate at St Pancras, rather than Waterloo.

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