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Videobustour - 2011 coach tourism innovation champion

Every two years, the International Road Transport Union (IRU) recognises public and private companies in the bus and coach industry for their innovation, best practices and excellence towards facilitating and promoting sustainable mobility.

The 40^th anniversary of Busworld in Kortrijk, Belgium set the scene to reward the winners of the new IRU Coach Tourism Innovation Award 2011.

Videobustour, Germany’s “better city sightseeing tour” company, was this year’s winner for its innovative coach tourism service: “Discover a new form of city sightseeing – unique multimedia tours on buses with on-board video screens”, which couples a traditional sightseeing coach tour with modern multimedia tools.

Videobustour uses a modern approach to reach new target audiences, by using the latest multimedia technology, including historic film footage, photographs and audio material presented on video screens throughout the bus during the tour. The combination of experienced tour guides and rich content offers a wide range of tours attracting, among others, a younger, local and well-off public. Coach tourism has seen an increase in regions where Videobustours have been used.  

IRU Vice President, Graham Smith, said: “By launching this new global company award, we want to encourage companies, like Videobustour, to proudly display the wealth of innovation and service excellence that is abundant in our sector, not only to their customers, but also to policy decision-makers at international, national and local level, and to contribute to the creation of the much needed pro-coach societal and political mindset.”

The IRU Coach Tourism Innovation Award acknowledges and rewards companies active in coach tourism across the world that implement exemplary innovative policies favouring sustainable group tourism by coach. This is the first edition of the award.

“This award is a wonderful and important recognition for our work that motivates us to keep developing our successful concept for Videobustour and to introduce new ideas. In the future our guests will not only experience multimedia on video monitors, but we will also introduce on demand services for tablet computers. Location, guest, and coach will be able to actively communicate with each other in real time, exchange ideas and select individual content. That is the future for Videobustour, and we believe that is one crucial trend for coach tourism.”

From left to right: IRU Secretary General, Martin Marmy, Andreas Dahrendorf, Managing Director of Videobustour, Arne Krasting

• Visit Videobustour's website
• Read the Press release
• See the photo gallery

Read the "IRU Coach Tourism Innovation Award 2011" winner's application's file

Runner-ups: