Some critical notes to the GROUP TOURISM BY COACH High level Group Brussels, 27 September 2012 Paul Peeters (Associate Professor Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport, NHTV Breda University for Applied Sciences, Netherlands) Website: www.cstt.nl
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Critical assessment • IRU invited me to critically reflect on the IRU preparation document .. • … so I will, but please, be aware I do see the many benefits of coach travel in both environmental, social and economic context. • The purpose of my comments is to generate new and improve existing ideas to promote coach travel
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Coach travel is important for sustainable tourism • In comparison with both car and air transport, coach travel is the most energy efficient and climate friendly mode • Compared to train, the coach is better as well, but that is mainly due to the higher seat occupancy; on a seat base the two are equal • Coach could fit into an emerging trend of ‘slow travel’ 3
1. Coach for growth, competitiveness and social inclusion • This section is too defensive “...treated very unfair by all government levels and these governments do not see how beneficial group coach transport is”. • If group travel is so very good, then why do you need help? • Some detailed remarks: – Not 360 million or 40% of trips is within Europe but some 900 million and 90%; do not forget domestic tourism! – Coaches can be perceived as a large nuisance in historic cities (fumes, noise, danger, traffic jams, etc.). Do acknowledge the problems and cooperate to find the right solutions. – Do not overvalue coach: without it most destinations will not note the difference; airlines and railways will (benefit)!
– “Appeal”, “creative”, “innovative”?? Why then is demand falling? – Are the 5.5% and 9% shares in UK/Germany representative? Probably not only coach group travel? 4
2. Users’ needs • Confusion: cities, hotels, destinations, etc. are not users but stakeholders. • Higher visibility is necessary for new customers (the elderly know the coach!): young partying people not wanting to drive because of alcohol • “Information”? The world has changed, information is passive: use the power of social media • Create your own customer satisfaction/potential customer requirements tool; avoid EU subsidies which are inefficient and covering just 50% of cost • Will managers really change their strategy based on a “charter”? Not really effective and just communication to the world! 5
3. Legislative and administrative frameworks • Coach as part of sustainable transport: develop into for customers one integrated non-car and non-air sustainable transport system; use coach, bus, train, urban where most efficient; refuse to compete each other; lobby for legislation that enables to compete with car and air. • Low emission zones: make your coaches zero emission/noise • Increasing size/weight? That will cause more local legislation… . • Gathering information: also use e.g. GPS in coaches, GSM of customers, and other new tech, etc.
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4. Fiscal matters and user charging • A strategy to demand tax exemptions is doomed to fail in current age of huge government deficits. • Ask for equal taxes in mainly intra-EU aviation for both VAT and kerosene: benefit of increasing government income. • Just a tactical choice here of what you might get! 7
5. Infrastructure and seamless intermodality European multilingual portal: • Great idea as this could be an instrument for cities to compete and thus gain more tourist attracted • Do not go for an EU project • Hire a couple of wiz kids to make this tool for coaches based on e.g. Google maps and integrating in GPS software? • That might cost less than €100,000. An EC project generally costs over €300,000 of which beneficiary has to pay 50% himself… . 8
6. Easy access to services (information & new technology • Forget the tourist offices; in many countries these are disappearing quickly; others giving online information are now taking over so track those organisations.
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7. Safety and environment • Many carbon calculators exist already (e.g. UmweltMobilCheck by DB (no coach!), or the one from Transport Direct. • Suggestion to check these calculators and update/include the coach into it
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8. City-related aspects • Do not try to harmonise regulations in all cities: – – – –
takes decades costs enormous resources to industry and others will be a compromise every city is different with different needs and requirements
• My suggestion: Develop a course/checklist/manual how to successfully approach cities: – stakeholder analysis – try to find the arguments why they want to keep coaches out of the city – find stakeholders who might be your supporters – negotiate in a constructive and open way – Provide some best (and worst) cases – integrate with the database with all regulations, parking places, etc. 11
Some final ideas • • • • • • •
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Try to be more pro-active, less defensive Try to develop into the new high tech, information rich society. Keep existing markets, but explore new ones also Cooperate with governments on all levels; they can crush you but you cannot escape them. Asking for tax exemptions is not likely to be effective with current deficiencies; let others be taxed There was a time when coaches were also massively used in commuting; reinvent this in cooperation with cities as commuting is in the direct interest of these cities Use of coach in business travel: a market could be to have meeting and moving by using luxury coaches, where you aim at facilities (internet access, electric power, food and beverage) and less on the lowest price. Productive hours on board may save costs for business travellers as the rates for ‘lost time’ are in the range of 50-100 euro per hour. Solve the transfer problem from railway stations in important rural tourist sites; work with accommodations and offer them high quality coach services for a range of accommodations in stead of every accommodation having its own expensive taxi driving customers (if at all for train travellers!). This combination would make a really reliable and comfortable sustainable alternative to car and air up to medium distances. Specifically transport from the outlying new high speed stations like Aix-en-Provence could be a market to serve with direct connections to the trains arriving/departing from/to the North. Cooperate, not compete, with fellow sustainable transport modes as rail, scheduled coach and even cycling. Your main competition is the car and airlines. 12