Alford-based Hunt’s Coaches will be celebrating its 90th anniversary next year. To celebrate, it is planning to launch its 2020 coach holiday brochure with a bang
From UK day excursions to week-long continental Europe tours, turkey and tinsel and theatre trips, there are myriad options to choose from when it comes to compiling a coach holiday brochure.
However, ensuring trips remain varied and exciting – while also keeping in the firm favourites – is key to encouraging repeat custom and attracting new customers.
And what better way to keep tours relevant than to directly ask customers what they want? This is one of the aspects that Hunt’s Coaches of Alford, Lincolnshire, attributes to the success of its business and coach holidays.
Operating for 90 years next year, the firm knows a thing or two about keeping its customers happy and it is planning to launch its greatest coach holiday programme yet in celebration of its 90-year milestone.
A family affair
Established in 1930 by Frederick Hunt, the firm is now in its third generation.
Hunt’s Business Development and Marketing Manager, Lindsay Linder, says: “Fred started with one Bedford coach, operating a three times daily bus service in Boston.
“He built up a loyal following and had the ambition to expand the business, so he purchased some other local operators to do that.
“By 1941 he had 16 vehicles and he started to use them to transport workers to factories, children to schools and to operate vital links to some of the larger towns in the rural area.”
It was soon after the Second World War that Frederick began running coach holidays throughout England and Scotland, which really allowed the business to take off.
Fred’s sons, Charles and Michael, took over the business in the 1970s and continued to develop the company.
“They built a network of bus services, as well as a full programme of holidays and excursions, and they also upgraded the fleet,” says Lindsay.
Hunt’s today
After Charles' retirement in 2013, Michael took full control of the business and is joined by his wife Amanda and son Joe.
Hunt’s runs a 33-strong fleet, ranging from eight-seaters to 70-seaters, operating a varied portfolio of work from coach hires, UK and European coach holidays, day excursions and bus services.
“We do everything, really,” says Lindsay. “Everything you can image you might want from coach transport.”
It now operates from two Alford sites – its travel shop in West Street and its Station Road site, which is a petrol station Fred opened in the 1960s. Today, it houses the firm’s vehicles and in-house mechanics team, as well as a forecourt that provides essential local services such as PayPoint and MyHermes.
The firm has a big presence in its local area and won Independent Retailer of the Year at the East Lindsey Business Awards last year.
“It was a great achievement as it recognises that we put customers first and that we are providing diversity and variety to the high street,” says Lindsay.
“After nearly 90 years of providing transport services and providing employment opportunities, it’s really nice to see that the business is able to support the local community because of the team we have and because everyone is willing to innovate and do something a bit different.”
Promoting the industry
Hunt’s doesn’t just promote the services it offers, but also the coach industry as a whole by attending career fairs for local colleges, schools and job centres to showcase all aspects of running a coach operation.
“It’s quite enlightening,” says Lindsay. “A lot of the students – from leisure and tourism to mechanical – don’t realise the variety of careers that are available within a traditional coach tour company.
“It’s really nice to speak to young people and let them know about what opportunities there are in the industry. We’d like them to look to us and come to us when they’re looking for a career in the future.”
As Hunt’s also has its own maintenance team, it was able to take on two apprentices in the mechanics team last year.
Says Lindsay: “We’ve taken on someone who’s just starting their career in mechanics and we’ve also taken on one of our drivers who expressed an interest.
“We’re always looking to provide opportunities for our staff in order for them to progress and we have a full programme of both in-house and external training in place.”
Moving with the times
For long-established firms it’s vitally important to keep up to date with current developments, which is something Hunt’s had in mind when it recruited Lindsay as Business Development and Marketing Manager – a newly-created role – in 2017.
“It’s all about making sure we have a really good online presence, as well as all the right print copy out there so whoever they might be, whatever age, they all have the same opportunities to be able to use our services,” says Lindsay.
“We also have systems in place that help us when we do our fleet reviews. We look at the vehicles and we can see which ones are working well and which ones aren’t, so it’s all about retention and change.”
Listening to customers
This idea of retention and change is also applied to the coach holiday side of the business, with new tours continually being offered based on customers’ requests.
“We really do listen to our customers,” says Lindsay. “We give them questionnaires on all of the tours, and it’s based on their feedback that the next holiday programme comes out. Although we keep the firm favourites, such as Llandudno, there’s always something new.
“For example, quite a lot of our customers have been going to the Edinburgh Tattoo for some time.
“Although they enjoy it, they’ve got to the stage where they would like something similar, but a bit different. Therefore, this year we are going to Kynren – the epic tale of England – and that is going down really well.”
Celebrating 90 years
Hunt’s will be launching its 2020 holiday brochure in September and, to mark its 90-year anniversary, the firm is going all out.
“We’re going to be putting in some even more unusual and different tours because with it being our 90th year, we’re really going for it. We’re going to really try some different things that we’ve not done before,” says Lindsay.
The launch event will be hosted at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School on Station Road in Alford on Thursday 5 September from 1900-2100hrs.
Lindsay adds: “It will be a celebration of all the different things Hunt’s has done over the years. There will be some nice shots of the vehicles and some stories of times gone by.”
Looking ahead
For every family-run operator the topic of succession can be a sore subject, but Hunt’s has high hopes that its third generation won’t be the last.
Says Lindsay: “We’re very fortunate because we’ve got new members of the family arriving all the time. Last year we had a new arrival on Joe’s side – a baby boy.
“We’re hoping Hunt’s Coaches will continue for many years to come.”
