Own A Charter Bus Company

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

The cost of such extras may seem prohibitive, but everything you put into the bus, Larry notes, is an investment. "If you take good care of it, your $23,000 bus should still be worth $16,000 to $18,000 on the open market after three or four profitable years."

Keep in mind, too, that while a smaller bus can mean a much lower cash outlay and smaller monthly expenses . . . it will also produce considerably less income.

HOW TO RUN THE BUSINESS

As a charter bus operator you will never sign up individual passengers, but will deal with the travel chairmen or -women of clubs and other groups. Such individuals sign up the minimum number of customers required for the tour (36 or 37 for a 39-passenger bus) and collect the money from them. In exchange for doing most .of the paperwork, the chairperson and his or her guest get to take the trip free . . . which is why a typical excursion has 37 instead of 39 paying passengers.

Tour chair folks are always on the lookout for new and attractive trips . . . so the more variety you can offer, the better off you'll be. Larry provides any interested parties with photocopied information sheets that describe more than 100 different tours-ranging from his one-day "Cherry Picking Trip" ($7.00 per customer) and a "Whale Watching Cruise" ($10) to ten-day tours of national parks ($299 plus meals) -all planned to include interesting and offbeat stops along the way.

Of course, it's in choosing your tours that palm-of-the-hand knowledge of your travel area really pays off. "Entertaining trips make satisfied customers," Larry says, "and happy customers give you the word-of-mouth advertising that will build up your business fast."

ADDITIONAL TIPS

Besides that prime piece of advice, our successful tour operator offers the following tips on how to make a home-based bus business pay:

Be sure that the rates you set reflect the distances required for your various trips. A rate of $7.00 per passenger is fine for a nearby tour, but you'll have to charge more for those excursions-even if they're only one-day trips-that involve more fuel, tire wear, etc.

Include the price of accommodations and special-event admissions in the fee you charge (you can almost always get a substantial discount) . . . but not the cost of meals.

Do as much work as you can yourself. Larry takes care of his own regular bus clean-up and maintenance. For bigger jobs, though, he hires moonlighting bus company mechanics: "They have their own tools," he says, "know their business, and usually work for reasonable rates." (Larry's $70-per-day estimate of on-the-road operating costs includes a $400-per-month allowance for repairs . . . but that, he reminds us, is only an average figure. In any given month, the tab can range from zero to several thousand dollars.)

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print