Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
travel experience. This may take the form of brief small talk, listening in to
other people's conversations, or simply 'people watching'. In sum, passen-
gers on board this service enjoyed sharing space; it was part of the travel
experience. These results support more general findings from studies in the
Harz Mountains and Alpine regions of Europe (Hoenninger, 2003; Holding,
2001).
In the UK, bus use in a tourism context is relatively low and, given the
public's lack of experience of bus use outside the main urban areas, they are
generally viewed rather negatively in comparison to the car and are not con-
ceptualized as a travel option people can or would want to use (Dickinson
and Dickinson, 2006; Dickinson et al, 2009). Bus users comment on late
running buses and high costs, and they generally identify more problems than
car users while, conversely, car use is justified by problems with buses
(Dickinson and Robbins, 2008). This is not confined to the UK. There is
a consensus that a combination of improved service levels, reduced fares
and reliability (e.g. in beating delays in congestion) are the three main elements
which would improve patronage, as noted in European, North American and
Australasian studies (Currie and Wallis, 2008). The negative perception of
buses has made it more difficult to introduce initiatives in a tourism context.
In some instances, initial government funding often is withdrawn within a
short period, when low levels of use are reported (Dickinson and Dickinson,
2006), yet evidence suggests tourist initiatives must be built up gradually over
several years, and take longer to become established than more utilitarian
routes (Breakell, 1999; Holding and Kreutner, 1998).
In an early study of the privately-owned bus network on the island of
Malta, Robbins (1996) highlighted that the needs of tourists are different to
local residents, yet they share the same network. This finding is supported by
Lumsdon (2006), who undertook 51 in-depth interviews of tourism and trans-
port planners responsible for designing bus networks in tourism areas. He
concluded that most did not understand or recognize the needs of tourists.
They were not willing to change the design of services to meet the needs of
tourists over residents, given the resource limitations in providing bus services.
In order to achieve a greater modal shift from the car, services need to be
designed with the tourist experience in mind, but this does not necessarily con-
flict with the needs of residents.
The International Association of Public Transport (2003) has argued that
bus companies seeking to attract tourists to use scheduled services need to
adopt a stronger customer orientation, provide door-to-door service and to
adapt existing processes such as providing integral day fares. Furthermore, the
Association advocates that companies need to tie in more closely with tourism
providers in order to serve events, cultural quarters and to gain synergies
wherever possible. In order to develop a service, these factors need to be
brought together in a promotional plan. Where tourists have been attracted to
scheduled bus services, their numbers have been shown to boost services with
relatively low use, especially in rural areas (Charlton, 1998).
Buses can also prove attractive to tourists under special circumstances.
City tour bus services have grown considerably over the last two decades, with
Search WWH ::




Custom Search