<B> Dav El, Coach Make Pact</B>
<I>Ally For One-Stop Ground Transport Shop</I>
By Chris Davis
Planners of large corporate meetings will have a new opportunity to book buses and limousines through a single source thanks to a new alliance between Houston-based motorcoach company Coach USA and Dav El Chauffeured Transportation Network of Boston.
While most corporate meetings usually require only one of those forms of ground transportation, larger, company-wide or shareholders' meetings can require both limos for company executives and shuttles for the rank and file. The two new partners are pitching the service as a way for planners to avoid dealing with several local bus and limo companies and instead make just one call to either Coach USA or Dav El. Both companies cited the deal as an opportunity to extend their reach into the corporate meetings market.
The alliance makes Dav El and Coach USA even more competitive with Washington, D.C.-based market leader Carey International, which has offerred combined bus and limousine service deals nationally for the past two years.
For Coach USA, which operates a decentralized network of motorcoach companies in more than 120 cities, the alliance also is a first step towards the development of a national corporate accounts program that offers volume-based discounts to repeat customers. Officials hope to have such a program in place by the fall. "In discussions and focus groups with our customers, they have let us know that they want a national account program of some type, with basic services and consistencies," said Bill Cole Jr., Coach USA's vice president of marketing and sales, who would head up such a program. The company also expects to hire a director of national sales by July.
A national corporate meetings program would be the logical next step for three-year-old Coach USA, which already garners up to 25 percent of its revenue in some markets from corporate groups.
"We're trying to develop a program that allows customers to maintain their relationships with the local companies while layering in additional services for markets where they have no relationships," Cole said. "The Dav El alliance helps as we develop that program, because we've had occasions, as have they, where customers have asked for the additional service."
The alliance took about six months to complete after Dav El expressed an initial interest.
Dav El already has a national corporate meetings program, but it's primarily centered on providing limousine service for executive board and other high-level meetings of Fortune 1000 companies, president Scott Solombrino said. The alliance was born out of a concerted effort to broaden the services Dav El provides.
"About 15 to 18 percent of our total annual revenue comes from corporate meetings, but we've focused so much on the CEOs and boards of directors that we're not focused on the overall meetings market," Solombrino said. "We're trying to be more things to more meeting planners, and this alliance makes that an easier sell."
Dav El will be able to book reservations for both companies through its new central reservation system, which Solombrino expects will be ready by the end of this month.
"Booking a bus was always more confusing than booking a car, but this will help," Solombrino said. It also will bring a competitive advantage for the two companies, Solombrino noted. "There is no similar deal that we would consider a threat, because there's not a bus company on their level," he said. "We don't think that someone's going to strategically back up on us from behind."
Richard Del Colle, the Burlington, Mass.-based meetings program manager for Hewlett-Packard Co., had a cautious reaction to news of the alliance, noting that the main beneficiaries will be corporations holding large meetings where many attendees arrive at the same time--a specialized segment of the market.
"It's not a need that I've really come across," Del Colle said. "You need a fairly large group in order to need buses. If we're having a meeting, and if we're not holding it onsite, we'll usually approach the hotel for recommendations."
But Linda McNairy, general manager of Carmel, Ind.-based Corporate Events Management, a branch of Navigant Meetings and Incentives, said she does retain motorcoach and limousine services for meetings, primarily when large pharmaceutical companies hold events to launch a new product. A few VIPs get the limos, while the other employees take the bus.
When that situation arose in the past, McNairy signed contracts with two separate companies to provide the services. She said she would be interested in the Coach USA-Dav El program. "It's definitely worth looking at because one-stop-shops are always valuable," she said. "My concern, though, would be whether they can satisfy standards on both ends of the spectrum. Can they truly provide top-notch service on both ends?"
Citing the general trend toward consolidation of supply in the meetings industry, Jim Fausel, president of The Conference Connection, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based meetings management firm, predicted that this probably won't be the last motorcoach-limousine product offered by the ground transportation industry.
But Fausel, who said he rarely plans meetings that require both forms of transportation, took a wait-and-see approach concerning the alliance's value to busy planners.
"I'll check it out," he said, "but I'm not inclined to use them yet over someone local.