COACHING FOR PLEASURE – GREENER, SAFER AND MORE MILES FOR YOUR MONEY
Leave the car at home, save money on petrol or diesel, and go miles further on a coach tour. The huge increases in pump prices make travel by coach the best value option by far for millions of motorists looking to beat the credit crunch and enjoy a holiday without breaking the household budget.
“A day excursion, short break or holiday by coach is stress free and offers fantastic value for money, especially when compared with the cost of driving yourself,” said Sean Taggart, chairman of the Coach Tourism Council, which promotes travel by coach on behalf of more than 150 UK coach tour operators.
“Coach tours are hassle and worry free, especially compared with air travel. You don't have to worry about finding a space to park your car at an airport or stand in lengthy queues for check-in and security checks. You will not have to pay an airline flight surcharge often costing more than the ticket itself. On a coach tour you know your bags will stay with you from start to finish.
“What's more you can do all of this with a healthy conscience. Not only is modern coach travel seven times safer than travelling by car, but it is also almost six times ‘greener' than driving a car or going on holiday by air and twice as ‘clean' as going by train.”
These three examples from regional operators who are members of the Coach Tourism Council ( www.coachtourismcouncil.co.uk ) , show potential savings:
• 5-night DBB holiday by coach to the Ocean View Hotel in Bournemouth including excursion and entrance to Compton Acres with Welsh's Coaches of Pontefract departing 7 September - £538 for two sharing
DIY deal to same hotel £650 + £83 fuel + £13.90 entrance: Total £746.90
Coach saving £208.90
• 4-night DBB tour by coach with David Ogden Holidays of St Helens on Merseyside to the Durrant House Hotel in the seaside resort of Bideford in Devon - £358 for two.
DIY deal at same hotel £529 + £90 fuel: Total £610
Coach saving £252
• 2-night B&B short break with Diamond Holidays of Swansea to the hit musical Grease on 19 September staying at a 4-star central London hotel and including top price theatre tickets - £390 for two sharing.
DIY deal by train from Swansea to Paddington - hotel £288, train £59, Grease tickets £121, various taxis £20. Total £488
Coach saving £98
Notes:
Research in 2007 by the famous Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg for RDA, the International Coach Tourism Federation, showed that coach travel uses six times less energy than planes, six times less energy than cars and two times less energy than trains.
More than 5 million people take a coach tour in the UK each year; more than 36 million day trips per annum are by coach
