You've no doubt heard the phrase "the customer is always right", and there is a valid argument that this is indeed the case. In the coach hire industry, you're not just dealing with the customer at the end of a phone or on email, you need to remember that there are many other customers behind the scenes travelling on the actual coach or minibus. We're privileged to work with excellent coach and minibus operators who all have the same respect and courtesy for the customers that we have. 

There was an incident the other day where one of our clients flights was delayed and was unable to contact us.  As we track all flights where we are doing an airport transfer we we able to seemlessly re-arrange the coach transportation to the new arrival time.  The customer was very thankful to us as he'd been concerned that he'd miss the airport transfer. It just shows that a bit of forward planning can save a heck of a lot of time in the long run - if we hadn't tracked the flight we would have potentially had to send the vehicle twice and also have the customers waiting around!

With the jump horse racing season fast approaching we're started to get lots of coach hire bookings for The Aintree Grand National, and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. If you are planning on going racing via coach travel it's vital that you pre-arrange coach parking at the racecourse - this is simple to do if you have prebooked tickets for a group of you travelling by coach.

Private Coach Hire is  a good alternative to using public transport such as the train and quite often it works out to be much cheaper and convenient. Visit Racecourse Express if you are interested in an Express Coach Service to Ayr Racecourse .

Be sure to arrange your coach hire quickly as availability for coach travel to these events quickly reduces and coach hire prices tend to increase.

Echoing our earlier similar blog entry last year about the Amphicoach, there is now the"amfibus", it is the latest wheeze by Britain's most famous busdriver, Brian Souter, the co-founder and chief executive of Stagecoach Group, one of the world's largest bus and railcompanies.

If it survives day two, it could becomeBritain's first timetabled amphibious bus service.

Souter believes the Clyde service could provea model for amphibious buses elsewhere in the UK. Stagecoach is confident theamfibus can navigate safely through the wash of boats and any other passengerferry which might yet replace the obsolete service.

The bus has been borrowed from its owners, theDutch waterborne tour operator Splashtours, which is planning to run a serviceon Rotterdam's Maas river. Steve Stewart, head of communications forStagecoach, is confident that passengers will have no need of seasicknesstablets on the amfibus's 200-metre trip over the Clyde. At £700,000, theamfibus is roughly three times the price of a standard passenger coach. Unfortunately, Coach Hire Booking won't be offering any similar services in the near future!

More information below 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/feb/08/amphibus-stagecoach-river-clyde 

Long time no post.. It's been an incredibly busy 6 months with Coach Hire Booking going from strength to strength. We've had the pleasure of meeting a number of coach operators who we've been dealing with over the years to let us further build on the existing relationships we have.

The winter, has seen some challenging weather to deal with but we're pleased to say that none of our services were affected - due in a large part to the excellent efforts of our coach operators.  Many of them were working late into the night and up early in the morning to clear yards of the snow.

We're already experiencing a surge of enquiries for 2010 so we expect marginal increases in price this year as demand outstrips supply.

Coach Hire Booking are now in a position to exclusively offer a choice of a 8 seater VIP minibus and a 16 seater executive minibus - these are available throughout the UK. 

Long time no blog. It's been an incredibly busy time for us here at coach hire booking, arranging coach hire for many of the festivals and sports events that are happening over the summer.

We're proud to be supplying coach hire to Glastonbury, V-Festival and many other festivals.   Due to the higher demand for coach hire in the summer, prices do rise so if you are planning on leaving the coach booking to the last minute, you may end up paying more that you would do by booking early.

We thought it would be useful (and amusing) to show how even the most experienced of coach hire drivers can get into a pickle if the area where the coach is picking up from is particularly awkward.  The excellent plugin used is this one - good work!

2009 is destined to be a testing time for the group coach travel and private coach hire market.  People throughout the country are tightening their belts for the predicted recession that is being touted in every major newspaper, and this means that they are likely to be cutting down on the luxuries and non essential items.

However, as mentioned in our previous post about the credit crunch and the effect on the coach travel market this could very well mean that people start to look for more cost effective ways of travel.  Cost effective doesn't mean that the public will want any lesser standard when travelling as a group though, and if the coach hire market wishes to take real, long term advantage of this increase in demand from the public then they must also look at increasing the standards of service for group coach travel.

With fuel prices reducing, group coach travel becomes even more cost effective that it was in 2008.  At Coach Hire Booking, we are already experiencing a surprisingly high number of enquiries for larger group coach trips, group coach travel as well as the normal smaller private hire enquiries. Our commitment to our clients is absolute, and because of this we use coach operators who share our passion for customer service and quality.  Coach travel has for too long played second fiddle to other methods of transport, and 2009 could be the year when the coach hire industry collectively decides to take advantage of the gap in the markets.

If any coach operators are reading, and want to become involved with Coach Hire Booking in 2009, please get in touch. 

One of the interesting aspects of providing managed coach hire is that every coach hire job we do is different. Its easy to assume that organising a coach trip is simple and on most routine jobs this is the case. However, where an itinerary becomes complicated or unusual with lots of co-ordination much more planning is required.  Its very important for clients to provide us with all the details of the day especially with regards to location. Recently we had a job that required a double decker coach to  pickup at a luxury hotel.

The VIP client had specified that the double decker coach was to pick up at the door of the hotel which was approached via a narrow lane. We were assured that the access to the hotel would be suitable for a large coach, but unfortunately this was not the case - the entrance was blocked by a number of concrete blocks.

Luckily, we were able to notify the clients of the problem and to let them know in good time so that their planned coach journey would not be  delayed.

Although we put in every effort to assure that the coach hire goes as smoothly as possible there are occasions where there are problems such as this, so its very important that the trip organiser is aware of potential issues such as these. Of course, sometimes these things just happen and this just makes it a little bit more interesting and memorable! 

With the first serious snowfall of the year, its important to remember that adverse weather conditions can have an effect on your coach hire plans. As unpredictable as the British weather can be, its wise to consider potential delays that could be caused by bad weather. 

The M62 running the width of the Pennines in Northern England can be particularly hard hit, with drifting snow in Winter and extremely strong winds. In these sorts of conditions, we emphasise to the coach operators, and coach drivers to take their time and not rush - in our view, safety is the primary concern when hiring a coach. We continuously monitor the road and weather reports using the Highways Agency's traffic information, and the MET office's weather reporting. This information can also be found on our website.