Group Tours, The Beginning

This Blog is concerned with what group tours are and how to arrange them. If you want to start a small business, or, if you are in charge of arranging a trip for a number of people - this is a blog you should follow. I worked in the travel business for over 25 years and established and operated my own tour company for over 10 years. I, as they say, know where of I speak. I've operated tours across the US, into Canada, Mexico and parts of Europe.

The majority of this blog will be all about bus tours. Yes, it will be about taking folks to see and do things and we will be using buses as our main mode of transportation. To begin at the beginning here is a picture of a modern motor coach - let's not call them buses, they are much more refined than that name implies.



This is a modern motor coach. It is not the type of bus that your mother and father knew and hated. New coaches have: air-conditioning, movie screens, comfortable seats, music systems, WiFi ability and more.



The little picture above shows the inside of a new motor coach. Note the big windows and comfortable seats.

So, now that we have had a look at our transportation, let's talk for a minute about the tour business. Probably the most over looked portion of the travel industry is group tours - or more specifically, bus tours. I looked for hours on the Internet and couldn't find any real information about how one is trained to establish and operate a group tour company. I did find some sites that attempted this but they (mostly from India or other parts of Asia) were really designed to sell products listed on their web pages.

I did find a number of travel agency schools that briefly hit on tours and some tour guides who sort of thought they knew how tours operate - but they were off in their guesses.

So...this blog will show you the how, why and when to plan, arrange, advertise, sell and operate group tours. If you stay with me, week after week, I will go through an entire tour from inspiration (I know, let's take a group to Branson and see the musical shows there) to the actual operation of the tour.

Tomorrow will be Day #1 of this endeavor. Tomorrow I will present an idea of where we will take a group of between 25 and 45 people.


Click here to read an article I wrote about this business