Tapping the International Traveler Influx

[IMAGE]MET7Intl.jpg[/IMAGE]Recently, motorcoach tours for international travelers, primarily from Europe and Asia, have become more popular. Coach operators are discovering ways of reaping the benefits of this business, ranging from putting more emphasis on Internet sales, to partnering with third-party resellers and tour companies in other countries.

Another crucial step in getting international customers on coaches has been to understand the needs and cultural attitudes they have that may differ from domestic travelers.

Offering consolidation deals

Dale Moser, president and COO, Coach USA notes that since April, the operator started seeing a big pickup.

Taking advantage of this uptick, the operation has employed marketing techniques such as attending international tourism trade shows and enlisting international Internet providers and third-party resellers worldwide. "We've enhanced our Internet exposure and the ability to sell our products and services online with discounts. More and more people continue to go in that direction, so we put heavy emphasis into Web sales," says Moser.

The amount of budget devoted to these techniques varies. "We've put more emphasis this year on international as well as Website enhancement and selling than we have in the past. We've really diverted our budget a little more over to this. We're probably at about five to six percent of our operating expenses [being] allocated to marketing," says Moser. 

Coach USA is also working with third-party resellers, the equivalent of Europe and Asia's convention and visitors bureaus. They take customers from western European countries and Asia in large groups and try to move them throughout the world on different tours and promote different countries and cities in the U.S., based on what the consumer is looking for. "They're really a consolidator, and can guide people to us from the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Asia, etc., and then consolidate them and move them toward affiliates that provide high quality and value-added tours in the United States," adds Moser.

The most popular tours for these customers are both in New York City and in Chicago, and overseas visitors tend to buy multiple packages. On the New York City tours, travelers can buy a three-day pass to ride on Coach USA's open-top European double-deckers that feature narrated tours to Times Square, Wall Street, the United Nations Building, Central Park and Harlem. They can hop on and off at 26 different stops along the way. Combination tours are also available, stopping at points of interest including the Statue of Liberty in Ellis Island and the Empire State Building. Visitors can even take a high-speed cruise on the Hudson River, or an amphibious vehicle tour. Coach USA offers many of these consolidated package tours at a significant discount compared to buying them individually at the face value market price, at each location.

The average amount of time the international traveler spends on these tours is three days, Moser says. This may seem unusually short for the amount of ground covered, but, based on what Moser has observed, the international traveler from Europe or Asia is well-adjusted to vacationing, and can fit a lot in to a short amount of time. They are used to seeking out public transportation. "They're very comfortable, they know how to utilize it and get efficiencies out of it," says Moser. This could be their one trip to the U.S. in four or five years, and they maximize that opportunity, he adds.

The current dollar to pound comparison isn't too bad, he adds, but just six to nine months ago, visitors could get two for one, since the pound was worth more than two dollars in the U.S. "Last summer, the cities were packed with international travelers because our dollar was so weak. It has subsequently rebounded and now it's not quite as good a deal...but when it was two, people were coming here with empty suitcases, going shopping, and going home with twice as much in their suitcases as they had in the past. So, that [impacts] the traveler, too," says Moser.

Travelers taking more time

Earl Reed, general manager of the San Jose, Calif.-based Royal Coach Tours also sees more travelers from overseas visiting the U.S. "It's starting to increase and it seems like we're getting more and more as people are relaxing and starting to travel again over the past two years."

Reed agrees with Moser that most international travelers are already well-versed in using transit. "You [can] get on a bus and see all of Europe. So, when they come over here, [customers] know exactly what they want in a coach."

Royal Coach is a member of the International Motorcoach Group, and many travelers that go through IMG contact them when they're planning to visit the San Francisco Bay Area, mainly to Yosemite National Park.

However, Reed says, Royal Coach Tours has had a different experience in the way these customers like to travel: there's a slowdown in pace. Tourists are taking more time at landmarks. "It used to be they'd try to do a thousand things in one day. Now they're trying to get more quality out of their trip, instead of just saying, 'I've been here, here and here.' It's 'I've spent some time here...[they take] more relaxed trips," explains Reed.

He adds that, now, tourists in general are more educated on coach complements, the safety records, and the year of the coach.

 "I think when you have conferences like [those held by] IMG, the United Motorcoach Association (UMA), and the Motorcoach Council, it's putting more in front of people than TV, ads or Websites. I think everybody's putting more facts out and people are getting educated in the process," says Reed.

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Promoting partnerships

For Greyhound Lines Inc., overseas travelers are usually students touring the U.S. and Canada during their summer break.

"One product we promote for overseas travelers and even domestic excursionists is the Discovery Pass. In fact, we recently lowered the price of all our Discovery Passes," says Ricardo Rodriguez, director of marketing. The pass starts at $199 and offers customers unlimited travel to more than 3,100 destinations across the U.S. and Canada. The Discovery Pass can be found at www.discoverypass.com.

Greyhound markets the Discovery Pass at international travel shows, along with promoting the pass through strategic partnerships, such as the International Student ID Card and Hostelling International. "We have found that international travelers enjoy visiting the top attractions and landmarks in the U.S. and Canada, and the Discovery Pass is a great way [for them] to do that," Rodriguez says.

Global outreach

In 2006, IMG Coach, which represents the U.S. and Canada, decided to go global and created GPN Travel, which provides the same motorcoach tour services, but on an international level. IMG Coach had a relationship with the U.K. and Italy - both of which have networks very similar to IMG Coach - for a number of years. The three countries got together at a UMA meeting in 2005 and decided to contact a few other countries to see what they thought about forming an international organization. Initially, nine countries signed on to create GPN Travel.

In addition to the U.S., the U.K. and Italy, members include Ireland, Germany, Sweden and Portugal. GPN Travel also just added Russia, the latest country to join the group, last month. Currently, the network has 27 countries and meets approximately twice a year.

"When we send tourists overseas, we want to have that [certainty] of what's going on. They're in the same boat. They have groups that come over here, and they want to have a comfort level, and we have very similar standards," says Steve Klika, president, IMG Coach and GPN Travel. The countries work together, coordinate and share products, best practices.

Klika recalls situations with groups that wanted to go overseas to Australia or Italy. "They would go to a tour operator or a travel agency, and a lot of times the travel agent doesn't even have an idea of what they're buying into, because they've never been there. They'll contact whoever they know over there and try to get something set up. We had a lot of people who were uncomfortable with that. They felt like, we're going to be at the mercy of whoever's taking us on the tour and what they're doing," he says.

He points out the IMG, in partnering with GPN Travel has a connection on both sides. They have firsthand knowledge of who's conducting the tour, and can monitor the status on a daily, moment-to-moment basis. "The relationship we have with GPN makes us unique because we're all working together as a team. My colleague over in Germany ...I know what he's doing and I know how his tours work. And I know a number of his tour staff, as well as the operations, his buses," Klika says.

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Wide range of tours

Through the partnership, GPN Travel is also working with a group in Germany that is doing an international parks theme. "The thing that we need to do when we bring [tourists] over is to be very conscious of how they want to travel," Klika says. 

Klika recounts a phone call he received from a group in India that was working on transportation and hotel needs, planning to visit San Francisco and Las Vegas for two weeks with approximately two buses. His employee Tony Funderburg, sales coordinator, IMG Coach, is working closely with the overseas group to help customize their tour.

"The [group] sent the days they're going to be here, and they say they want to sightsee, but they want us to come up with that. Especially with a convention type group, they want us to provide the recommendations on what they should do while they're here," Funderburg says.

IMG members, Klika adds, have always helped out on hotels and other ancillary services. "Even though our common thread is motorcoach, many of our companies [handle] other travel needs. And if they don't, we have partners within our own group that represent convention and visitors bureaus and hotels that we work with. For those customers that need one stop, they can work with our members and get the help they need," he explains.

Funderburg says that some education-based groups tour universities, or go to one specific university for a three- to four-day conference, or education seminar. "A lot of the international tourists want to find out more about agriculture in the U.S. In Iowa, Nebraska, some of our operators have put together agritourism trips. Visitors go to work on farms, see how things are done here as opposed to what they do over there."

According to Funderburg, now that China has lifted some travel restrictions, Chinese travelers are taking more trips to the U.S. Many will be going to the west coast, some to participate in national park tours. "It varies with the types of groups...earlier this year [I had] a music group from a school in Malaysia. It was an education-based itinerary, doing a choral tour of Toronto and the northeast U.S."

 The typical motorcoach tour often involves getting on a bus, getting off the bus to sightsee and moving on to the next point of interest, but European tourists tend to want a longer experience. Like Reed, Funderburg notes that these tourists don't want to see 20 sights in three days. They want more time to enjoy what they're seeing. "That's something we as Americans have difficulty understanding sometimes. We want to package a tour based on how we think a tour should be, versus how a different culture coming over here wants to see it," says Funderburg.

"Traditionally, if you're going to spend a day more or less getting here, you're going to have a longer trip than you or I would, if we went somewhere in the U.S. because it normally wouldn't take you that long to get there...you're working with them and building a relationship to find out what they want to do," he adds.

"We're going back to the old fashioned way of doing business: creating relationships," stresses Klika.