It was once the staple for group travel abroad, favoured by school trips and touring retirees alike, but it now looks like Britain could be falling out of love with the continental coach journey.
Many are likely to have been put off for life by chaos at Dover, as people try to get away for the Easter holiday. An estimated 20,000 people got caught up in gridlock last weekend alone after delays in border processing that forced vehicles to queue for up to 14 hours.
Much of that delay was down to Brexit – something the home secretary, Suella Braverman, was accused of denying before her department conceded it had played a role – which is putting particular strain on coach businesses with its time-consuming border checks that mean passengers who were once waved through must now have their passports stamped.
But that is only one of a swathe of challenges the industry faces, which includes passengers cutting back amid the cost of living crisis, staffing issues and soaring fuel prices in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
John Johnson, who has been running coach tours to Europe from the UK since 1979, described last week’s delays as “horrendous”. He took over the business, Johnsons Coach & Bus Travel, from family, and its first operation began in 1909 using a simple cart and horse. Johnson remembered fondly the heyday for European tours as the 1970s and 80s. “This was a very good time and then, of course there was the downward trend that started when cheap air travel came in,” he said.
Today there are 2,500 coach operators in the UK, employing about 40,000 people, with 80% of the businesses being small and medium-sized enterprises.
While many still ply the cross-Channel route, reports are increasing of British tour operators ditching routes to Europe in favour of domestic trips. Phil Smith, UK coach manager at Confederation of Passenger Transport, said some members were now solely “concentrating on the UK rather than doing international work as well”. He cited multiple reasons for this, including a bouncing back of UK staycations since coronavirus and the greater risks that taking a coach abroad poses, for example if there are breakdowns.
Smith said he was “disappointed” by the scenes at Dover, but a contingency plan was in place for this weekend. However, he has “longer-term concerns” about the European entry/exit system that will be introduced next year, which could make the processing of passports take even longer. “We hope to have constructive talks with the port of Dover about how that situation can be managed,” he said.
James Baker, who owns a small family-run coach company based in the Cotswolds, said he knew operators who had switched to a standard national licence, rather than an international licence. “Lots of companies [are] pulling back from doing anything abroad,” he said.
Another issue holding back managers is a lack of staff, Baker said, adding that they would only consider working in Brittany or Paris. “We used to travel a lot further but there are risks now if something goes wrong in Croatia, for example. The cost of getting someone else to take on the tour and get the vehicle back is too much. The risks are greater than the reward.”
They are short on drivers, he said, and needed to focus on profit, with most staff not wanting to be “chasing across the continent doing thousands of miles”. After the pandemic, and when furlough finished, Baker lost about six drivers and he said training new people took time.
Coach travel coming the other way across the Channel has also been affected. A Blue Badge guide, Sally Jenkins, said she had seen a fall in the number of visits from French schools because after Britain left the EU all children have to show passports, and some even require visas. “We have seen fewer school trips, quite a few groups are coming but nothing like it was in 2019. There have been delays as well getting through due to stamping of passports.”
Johnson said European tours had been declining for some time, but recent developments made a rebound less likely. “Certainly we are focusing on countries and destinations you cannot reach on a cruise ship,” he said, noting that as cruises became more popular fewer people wanted to travel by coach.
“One thing our industry has to do better is selling our environmental benefit. The environmental cost per passenger is much lower on coach than car and better than planes.”
Smith agreed, saying that coaches emitted five times less carbon dioxide than an aircraft. “There is a big opportunity in terms of the environment and sustainability that coaches can be a big part of a reduction in carbon going forward.”
In terms of the future, and whether the downward trend in European tours would continue, Smith said it was “hard to say” as the market was “driven by what customers want”.
“I do not think it’s the end of European coach travel – but there are certainly challenges,” he said.
