Coach Hire Companies and the Internet
History of Coach Hire
There are some 3500 coach hire Companies in the UK according to VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency). Also according to VOSA there are some 27,000 licenced coaches and minibuses. The mean coach operator therefore has approximately 7 vehicles. Traditionally the industry has benefitted from local advertising with the ‘Yellow Pages’ being the single largest beneficiary of the industry advertising spend.
In 2003/04 the first internet based brokers began to emerge. After 5 to 6 years of internet based restructuring the industry is partially reorganised upon two basic divisions national and reional, operators and agents. Current Status – Coach Hire and the Internet”’
The coach hire industry is ‘enjoying’ challenging growing pains on the internet. The fragmented nature of the industry and the ad hoc nature of coach travel means the industry is ripe – just as with the rest of Travel and Tourism – to be consolidated via the internet.
The industry has seen two high profile casualties in 2009 with the bankruptcy of Fraser Eagle and World Transfers. These failures when combined with the ongoing attrition of many smaller ‘Mom and Pop’ operators has led to significant losses from banks, investors and suppliers.
In the context of these losses it is not clear cut who is still investing in the internet space for the coach hire industry at the end of 2009. At the present time, given the absence of the national coach hire operators, the market seems to have 3 distinct groups – national coach brokers, regional coach operators and national franchises based on ASP based networks.
Coach Brokers
Following the demise of two of the major brokers (World Transfer and Fraser Eagle) the major players left in the broker segment of the market are Connections (Kings Ferry) and Coach Broker. A number of smaller operators exist but these are in the majority Companys with a handful of employees. The larger operators based upon the Alexa reports get an estimated 500,000 unique visitors a year.
Regional Coach Hire Operators
The challenge facing regional/ local operators when competing with national Companys is to get efficient advertising spend. Some (former competitors)are banding together through a cross linking strategy to make sure no potential customers are lost. There are many Companies who fall into this category but typical operators include Zenith (Hampshire), EPI (Surrey), St Margarets (Hertfordshire), Horizon (Cheshire), Supreme (Essex) and Premier (Bedfordshire).
National Franchise Coach Hire Operators
The largest ASP operator is Momentum Coach Hire utilising its ASP platform Coach Hire Hub. It claims to have 25 plus different regional operators on its ASP platform.
Consolidation or Attrition in the Coach Hire Industry
2009 will go down as primarily a year of attrition as opposed to consolidation. It seems that in the credit crunch era of scarce resources the coach hire industry is increasing finding ways to piggy back off each others internet investment. The use off cross linking strategies with previously competitor companies, ASP models, and brokers with preferred suppliers seems reasonably entrenched and is expected to develop further going into 2010.
