THE OPENING OF TI
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OR COACH SEASON.
A Difficult Period in Which the ( Providers of Amusement and Pleasu
:tor Has an Advantage Over Other e Public Wants and Expects to Get.
THE MOTOR coach season of 1921 has opened unduly early, thanks to an early Easter and to the prevalence of extraordinarily line weather throughout the country for so many weeks. On every road, at every holiday centre, and at all beauty spots the motor coach was to be found during the Easter holidays' and vehicles thus once put into commission will not be allowed to lie idle to any great extent.
It is going to be a season which, for the coach proprietor, will present enough difficulties to keep the business interesting. Last, year money came all too easily, and bold plans were made for the next year ; but the slump in trade came sufficiently early in the autumn to enable those who had been unduly optimistic to draw in their horns. In many of the .industrialidistricts there will, of necessity, be less money in circulation than was the case last year. There will not be so much to spend on amusements. But there is all this to the good, that the motor coaches showed to the miners, the steel workers, the cotton spinners and weavers, the engineers, the wool workers, and their wives (not so much the children, of course), that the open road presents joys and advantages which are not obtainable in the cinema or the local public house. They have learned, these 'people, the lesson that has long been familiar to the cyclist and the motorist that a drive through the country through glorious scenery to some pleasant resort (all according to individual tastes) is unequalled for its pleasure-giving qualities.
That is a great step for the motor coach to have made, and, by means of good publicity, by the charging of moderate fares, and rby the giving of good value, the motor coach proprietor will secure a large share of the business which the other forms of amusement will lose.
Most strongly do we warn the coach proprietor against senseless price cutting. There is a definite figure which represents the running cost of his coach per mile, to which must be added the proper proportion of the standing charges and the expenses of administration. With an addition for a fair and reasonable profit, he can arrive readily at the minimum charge for a job which will not leave him on the wrong side. We have taken pains to give him a clear lead in this matter, in an article which appears elsewhere in this issue entitled " Running Costs of Motor Coaches." It is written by an expert, and calls for careful study.
As unprofitable running simply spells ruin, and, generally, entails a cessation of service; the public • interest is best served if the business be run on sound economical lines, as it can be by skilful management.