Thirty years after its commissioning, the economic impact of the Channel Tunnel on Pas-de-Calais is indisputable. In addition to the 1,800 employees on the French side of Getlink, the company which manages the tunnel, the tunnel generated creation of 8,000 jobs in France. It also boosts tourism in the Opal Coast. An economic dynamism, whose influence goes well beyond the department, and which is not ready to stop.
Getlkink has a turnover of one billion 800 million euros in 2023. Every day, 400 trains use the Channel Tunnel, a third of which are goods. This corresponds to 25% of trade between France and the United Kingdom. In 2023, the capacity was increased to be able to go up to 1,000 trains each day. For now, the tunnel only partially uses its possibilities.
Job creation
With 1,800 employees on the French side, Getlink the tunnel’s parent company under the sleeve, is the first private employer in the district. And since 1994, its establishment has generated the creation of 8,000 jobs in the department, and not only at the terminal located in Dover, explains Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais and president of the Grand Calais Terres et Mers conurbation.
The tunnel also brought out the Cité Europe shopping center just when it came out. A shopping center which once again broke an attendance record in 2023 with six million visitors. There is a hotel zone around it, a Pathé cinema complex, a business center and a little further away the channel outlet store with around forty brands liquidating their stocks there.
An attraction for tourism
The tunnel has been an important asset for tourism on the Opal Coast in general. The tunnel which brought us closer to Great Britain has boosted short stays by putting Le Touquet three hours from London, and equidistant from Brussels and Paris. Daniel Fasquelle, its mayor, only regrets one thing: “that Eurostar trains no longer stop at Frethun station since 2020“.
Consolidated infrastructure
If the opening of the Channel Tunnel played a booster role, it would not have been this catalyst without, on the one hand, the port of Calaiswhere three ferry companies operate and on the other hand the A16 motorway. It connects the Netherlands to Paris via Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. 8 to 10,000 trucks pass through there per day, some use the tunnel, others take a boat to reach Great Britain. This has generated significant logistics activity in the city. As Calais promotion, the Calaisis development agency, explains: “SIf one of these elements was missing, tunnel, port or A16, for example there would not have been the development of the logistics zone of Transmarck and Turquerie.
