COACH touring clients are becoming more adventurous according to operators.
It may seem like a contradiction in terms, but operators say those booking coach tours are looking for the freedom to discover new places on their own.
Trafalgar Tours director of sales Matthew Lepisto said: “We are moving away from the type of tours where you’d say ‘it’s Monday, it must be Belgium’ because clients don’t want to be rushed from one place to the next any more.”
Trafalgar Tours has introduced a Europe at Leisure tour-and-stay concept which offers four nine-day tours to Italy and Spain, all of which have built in free time for clients to do their own thing.
Lepisto said these are a cheaper alternative to long city breaks as they included several destinations in one trip. Plus, they offer clients the added advantage of a door-to-door service, he said.
“With a lead in of only £665 for a nine-day tour to southern Spain, they are about half the price of an air-based package that would take in the same amount of sightseeing,” he added.
Cosmos Tourama has expanded its range of Leisurely Touring Holidays, introduced last year, which combine air and coach travel. Product manager Anne Robinson said: “We think more leisurely itineraries are the way forward.”
In spite of the plethora of low-cost flights available to Europe, Insight Vacations managing director John Boulding said the coaching market was growing
“We are not seeing any of our business drift away because of these cheap flights,” said Boulding. “Ours is an extremely competitive product when you think that even a first-class coach tour including meals, accommodation, excursions and the flight costs from only £90 a day.”
In the long-haul market, packages that combine coaching with rail travel or cruises are becoming more popular, particularly to North America and Australia. Of the 33 tours featured by North America operator Jetsave, nine combine coach and rail travel. Product director Alberto Boeri said these were among the most popular in the programme.
“Slowly but surely over the past four or five years, the market has changed, and although customers still want to travel by coach, they want to break up the monotony a little by taking a rail journey as well.”
The introduction of rail journeys and cruises has brought a slightly younger customer into the coaching market, according to Boeri.
“Some people are not totally enthusiastic about coaching but they are more interested in a tour if they see that half is by rail,” he said.
“As a result we are getting slightly younger clients coming into the market who would not have considered coaching in the past.”
Australia and New Zealand operator AAT Kings said it was beginning to attract customers as young as 40, whereas in the past its typical client would have been much older.
Grand UK Holidays sales director Harold Burke said the traditional ‘grey’ over-55s market was also continuing to grow, and he said these were the clients agents should be trying to woo.
“There is a new, more affluent pensioner who is prepared to go on a self-drive holiday, but a lot of people still prefer to be looked after and travel with like-minded people, and these are the ones most likely to book through an agent,” he said. “For them, a visit to the agent is part of the holiday experience.”