Two Aspects of COACH HIRE • M ANY readers of my article
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in last week's issue of The Commercial Motor," which gave details of a prospective coach tour in Scotland, Will consider that this was not what is generally understood by a luxury tour. The amounts set down for certain items of expenditure indicated that it was, in fact, a cut-price tour rather than a, luxury one. With this I agree, as the article was written by way of a reply to a prospective operator who appeared to wish to cut prices. His idea, as he explained to me, was to provide coach tours for the million at a price within the
reach of everyone. . The type of coach tour thus suggested would not meet with even popular approval especially if the tourists had already experienced the pleasures of a real luxury coach tour.
Respecting the coach, this was referred to as a 32-seater, and in the calculations it was 'assumed that 30 passengers were carried. That is riot the way of it in the case of the luxury tour. There would not be seats for 30 but for 20. As a rule the seats are arranged in pairs down one side of the coach with single seats on the other side. The primary advantage of this is, of course, the greater comfort for the passengers. . Little consideration is needed to indicate that the extra comfort thus provided is necessary because of the number of hours the passengers have to spend in the vehicle. On such trips the stops are generally timed so that the maximum period for which the passenger sits is 2 to 2-6hours, but the overall period is considerable. To be cramped up in seats as usually arranged in the ordinary coach would be uncomfortable arid inconvenient on an extended tour and the reaction would be unfavourable to the general success of this type of business.
Fewer Seats—Greater Comfort
With 20 seats in a coach built to the same dimensions as one which normally carries 32 passengers, they can be arranged to give plenty of room, and the opportunity is taken to use more comfortable seats than is practicable in the normal way. This arrangement affects, in two ways, the price which must be charged for the trip. In the first place when such a coach is more expensive, it becomes obsolete quicker so that the factor of depreciation, an important item of costs, weighs more heavily than in the example previously quoted. The fact that only 20 fares can be collected instead of 30 must obviously increase the amount of the fare by 50 per cent.
Then again, in my previous article it was suggested that accommodation for 30 passengers need cost only £200, or a little over £6 per week per passenger. That sum would be insufficient to meet the expense or the type of accommodation which is made available to passengers on luxury
tours, first-class hotel accommodation is provided, and it would be absurd to expect this to be covered by the expenditure of approximately £1 per day per passenger.
The type of man employed as driver and, where carried, a courier, can demand better wages than those specified last week: These men, besides performing their normal duties, are able not only to give a running commentary as the vehicle travels on its way, but can supplement that with detailed information concerning any particular landmark or beauty spot. These qualifications entitle them to payment well above the average for drivers and conductors on normal work.
• A Typical Itinerary
Another way in which the needs of the traveller are given consideration is in respect of the handbooks and itineraries which are provided. I have before me a typical plan issued in connection with a tour organized by a well-known coaching company. The folder holding the printed matter is individual to each passenger, his or her name, together with the seat number, being printed on it.
Inside the cover is a complete list of the names of the passengers, the seats they occupy and the towns they come from, so that right from the commencement the way is opened up for social intercourse, a necessary adjunct to the complete success of a tour of this kind. Each passenger is given a label for his luggage. On the front of the label is his name, the code number of the tour, his seat number and the date of issue. The back of the label is black and serves as a medium upon which the hotel porter can write the number of the room to be occupied. In each folder there is, too, a quantity of notepaper and envelopes.
The folder relates, of course, to a particular tour: it even relates to a particular passenger on that tour. In general, the passenger at the time -of his inquiry receives a book giving details of all the tours run by the particular company. The book is usually well printed and ample as regards the information provided. All these things cost money, but the expenditure is justified because it adds 03 the convenience and comfort of the passenger.
By way of costing such a tour, we can take the coach as costing £4,500, instead of £4,112 as mentioned last week. The extra cost will cover such equipment as an electrically operated sliding roof, glass panels at the side of the hood to afford additional view, the provision of luxury armchair seats, windows which are easily adjusted, a travelling-rug and footstool for each passenger, and other items conducive to maximum comfort.
Coincident with this first increase in cost it is necessary to consider the period over which this coach can be used for luxury tours. Forgetting the abnormal times in which we live, and considering the Sort of circumstances that may prevail three or four years from now, the time wilt come when operators concerned with luxury tours will be in a position to purchase vehicles which are even more comfortable, in that they will ride easier, have smoother-running engines and less noisy transmission systems. The advent of such vehicles will put present models well out of date, and the operator who wishes to stay in the business will have to-keep abreast of these developments.
For the purpose of this article 1 am going to assume that the. price obtained for the second-hand vehicle or the price to which it is written down, is £2,000. To assess depreciation it is therefore necessary to deduct.frorn the original £4,500 first the cost of a set of tyres, £112, next the second-hand value, which is £2,000, which leaves us with £2,388. Spread over three years that gives us the annual figure of approximately £790, which is E16 per week if we assume that the vehicle is kept in operation throughout the year.
The total of fixed charges relating to the operation of this machine is made up of the usual items as follows:—Tax 15s. per week; wages, on the assumption that a courier is employed, and making provision for the usual insurance and holidays with pay, £17; rent and rates, 13s.; insurance, £1 5s.; interest on the initial outlay of £4,500, £2 14s.; -depreciation, £16. The total to the nearest pOund is £38.
The running costs will not differ from those quoted in -the previous article, where I assumed that they would be fuel 2.64d. per mile, lubricants 0.15d., tyres 0.96d., maintenance, 1.00d., total Llid. The explanation of the comparatively low figure for maintenance is that in the three years there should be no major items of expense
incurred on this • account, especially as the vehicle will probably not run more than 12,000 miles per year, On the particular tour we are considering the vehicle ran 500 miles and at. 41d. per mile, which, in round figures, will be £10. The total vehicle operating cOst is thus £48.
The figure of £10 taken in the previous article to cover administrative costs, establishment costs, and so on, must be increased to cover all expenditure involved in publicity matter, payment of agents' commissions, and in the much more than cursory organization involved in providing for the accommodation for the passengers throughout the tour. Only the most assiduous attention to detail can ensure that the accommodation and the style in which the passengers are catered for can be assured without risk of failure. For that item of expense I am going to take £15.
I shall assume £12 per week as being the expense involved in catering for the accommodation of the driver and courier, and I come now to the final item, the cost of accommodation, catering and so on for the passengers. This will approximate to £12 per week per person, or £240 in all.
The standing charges for the vehicle amount to £38, running cost to £10, establishment costs £15, accommodation for driver and courier £12, accommodation for passengers £240, a total of £315. I am quite sure that there will be few who would regard £30 profit as being a fair return on an expenditure of £315. At the lowest I think an operator would be entitled to a return of 15 per cent. on his costs.
Let me turn this into a cost and charge per passenger because the calculations are more simple in that way.The cost per passenger is very nearly £16: we can call it £15 15s. If the profit per passenger be £2 12s. 6d., that is rather more than 15 per cent., which in my opinion is to be regarded as the basic minimum. That would mean that the fare charge would be £18 7s. 6d. On the basis of a 20 per cent. profit the fare wou!-.1 be £18 18s. and if. as in the previous article. I add it or 33A per cent., then the fare would b2 £21 Is.,
which is in line with what is usually charged to-day for a luxury tour of the kind I have described. I am told, however, that there is a wide difference between the charges made by one company and another. • The profit which the operator would make per trip would be £52 10s. at 15 per cent., £63 at 20 per cent., and £105 at 33Aper cent. I must close this discussion of what may possibily prove to be a controversial subject by a reference to the purely business aspect of the problem, prefacing it by a repetition of the age-old axiom, that the price of a commodity is what it will fetch. Take the case of tours for Which the charges are in line with the highest figures I have mentioned. The coaches and the tours are fully booked for the whole of the season before the year starts. Those who, early in the year, go optimistically to the booking office in the, hope of being able to take a holiday in that way during July and August are bound to he disappointed. The earliest date at which they can he accommodated is usually September and not often early in that month. Passengers trying to book in June and July are told that their only chance is that some passengers who have already booked may cry off, and even.so, the possibility of success in obtaining accommodation is most remote.
understand that at that period of the year the waiting list of one company usually exceeds 400. J rather imagine that my correspondent, notwithstanding his gesture of goodwill that he was, apparently, prepared to offer coach trips at a net profit to himself of 5 per cent., would not be long before he was thinking in terms of the 60 per cent, profit he said he was ab.k to make at bee-keeping.
One of the feature-. which has made extended coach tours so popular is the degiee of comfort which the passengers enjoy, arid any attempt to reduce this, with a view to widening the appeal, would probably result in a falling-off in bookings. S.T.R.