Alan Payling considers the implications for the coach trade of a report that shows that an increasing number of over-65s are shopping online
It was a bright, sunny afternoon when I pulled up outside a seafront hotel in Torbay to drop off one of my information packs with a coach driver that was staying there. I’ll call the company concerned Roger’s Travel. It turned out that the owners of the family-run company were operating one of their tours themselves from just outside a major city in the north of England. When I arrived they were sat on the coach enjoying a break and a hot drink after their journey south. I’d met the younger members of the family a few times before but not Mr. and Mrs.
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After saying hello and a few how’s your fathers, I asked them how business was. They became, it must be said, a bit glum when I asked this question. It wasn’t good. They had travelled some 300 miles to a very good hotel with 20 on board. If the tour was going to pay them anything, then it wasn’t going to pay very much. I was a bit surprised to hear this as they and the younger members of the family are committed, professional coach people through and through. Their business is just the sort of small operation that, because of the personal touches they can offer their passengers and the fact that they have a long-standing customer base, would mean that they should be carrying more than 20 people.
One of the issues they raised that I have heard before is that their passengers are getting older. Some have raised this in a more morbid tone by noting that their passengers are dying off. Another issue was that their customers were shopping around. Exactly how their customers were doing that, they didn’t say. But shopping around has perhaps never been easier.
More over-65s shopping online
I recalled that conversation when I read in my newspaper a report about online shopping from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The headline made me sit up and immediately wonder about Roger’s Travel and one aspect of their business model. The headline read: ‘Majority of over-65s embracing online shopping revolution.’ The ONS report, entitled ‘Internet Access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 2019,’ revealed that during the period surveyed of the first quarter of this year, and for the first time, more than half (54%) of adults aged 65 years and over had shopped online. In terms of the number of online purchases, the over-65s made on average between three and five online purchases in the survey period. Overall, 29% had made one or two purchases online, 35% had made three to five online purchases, 20% had made six to 10 online purchases while 14% had shopped online more than 11 times.
The ONS report said that 93% of households now have internet access, which has increased from 70% coverage 10 years ago and has grown by 3% since 2018. Of those now online, 87% of all adults said that they used the internet daily or almost every day. This usage has increased by 32% in a decade. Of the 7% without internet access, 61% of those said they felt that they did not need it with a third of those stating that they had security and privacy concerns about going online. Lack of computer skills was also a factor in not going online. While virtually all adults aged 16 to 44 years with online access used the internet on a daily basis or almost every day, older people used it less often. Usage reduced across older age groups, with 61% of adults aged 65 years and over using the internet daily while 24% of the over-65s had not used the internet in the last three months. Using the internet amongst all groups to find information about goods and services has gone up from some 59% in 2009 to nearly 80% today. In the over-65s group, 24% had shopped online to make ‘travel arrangements’ while 28% had sorted their ‘holiday accommodation’ online. The report does cover the online activities of other age groups but I have focused here on the over-65s.
When I had a look through the ONS report, I had a look at the website for Roger’s Travel to see if their customers could book one of their holidays online. No, they couldn’t. They could book and pay over the phone with a debit or credit card, by post with a cheque or in person during their office hours 0900 to 1700hrs Monday to Friday or 0900 to 1200hrs on Saturday morning. That’s a total of 43 hours. If their passengers could book online, that would mean that Roger’s Travel was open for bookings 24 hours a day, or, for 168 hours a week, throughout the year.
Online booking – the future?
Now, I can’t say with any certainty whatsoever that the reason Roger’s Travel had a half empty coach in Torbay was because potential passengers couldn’t book online. That would be to mislead the reader. What I am trying to do here is highlight a trend and changes in shopping/purchasing habits that appears to be going only one way – towards more and more online shopping amongst members of the coach holiday trade’s target markets and, in particular, their future markets.
Operators who don’t offer online booking can then make their mind up whether to stand still and stay as they are or go with the flow. But, it is noteworthy that operators throughout the land have gone quite a way with the technological flow already. Are there any operators that think they can survive without a website these days? Any think that they can survive without taking card payments over the phone? Are there any without an email address? Are there any that don’t use computers? If I am right about that, it’s not a big leap of the imagination to consider that potential passengers who are looking at your website on a quiet Sunday afternoon when your shop or office is closed or on a day when the weather is bad, would be tempted to make a booking with you if it was all sorted there and then with a few strokes of their key pad. And with regard to the specific complaint made by Roger’s Travel that their customers were shopping around, well, where is the easiest place to do that these days?
Of course, none of the technological changes listed above will be news to operators. What may be news is the quiet but significant shift that is going on amongst their potential passengers in the way they are increasingly happy to shop online. It is, after all, convenient – very convenient. And when you book a holiday, you don’t even have to wait in for a delivery from a driver in a white van.
Convenience for over-65s in work
There’s another factor to consider here. If the over-65s are indeed a crucial target market, a sizeable number of them are still out at work. Age Concern reported in their fact sheet, ‘Later Life in the United Kingdom 2019,’ citing ONS figures, that in October to December 2018 some 10.9% of over-65s were still going out to work. Not a big statistic, but it amounts to 1,290,000 older workers – a lot of people. Some will be working because they have to, as a result of pensioner poverty due to inadequate pensions and high rents. Meanwhile, others will be working to pay for treats, for luxuries – like holidays for example. Such people may welcome the convenience of booking their coach holiday online because their local operator’s shop opening hours aren’t convenient or because it would be a faff to get there. Given that many over-65s work in retail, online booking may well appeal to such people.
So, do prospective coach passengers want online booking? There’s only one way to find out and that’s to ask them. Perhaps those who do will be in a minority – at the moment. At this point, operators might want to scroll forward 10 years or so and consider where we will be at that time when the people who are now in the 55-64 age group perhaps start thinking about coach holidays. The ONS report indicated that 41% of that group had booked ‘holiday accommodation’ online while 38% had made ‘travel arrangements’ via the internet. The ONS figures show that the younger you are, the more likely you are to shop and book holidays/travel online. Is that going to change as the internet generation ages? A figure to take serious note of is that back in 2008, only 16% of the over-65s shopped online while only a year ago, the ONS reported it was 48%. It’s now 54%. Where will it be in 10 years if that sort of usage continues to grow?
Of course, as mentioned above, there are still very real security concerns about using the internet that will put some people off sending over £1,000 for a continental coach holiday for two people out into the ether. But regular internet users will be savvy when it comes to the payment protection offered by PayPal and their credit card providers.
I was talking to a tour driver in Paignton while I was thinking about this article. He was in his late 40s and recounted that his own use of the internet to make purchases had included booking a holiday in the Caribbean online that cost just shy of £4,000. One of his motives for booking his well-deserved holiday was to save money, a saving that amounted to a four-figure sum. He was in the process of booking a holiday online in New York when we spoke. With such expertise and experience increasingly the norm and convenience the expectation, are prospective passengers always going to be happy to trek down to a shop in the town centre with their credit card to book a coach holiday when the time comes when they want to be looked after from door to door?
Speaking from experience
Speaking of the online bookings mentioned above that were made with airlines and hotels, why is the coach trade the one sector of the travel/holiday industry where the option to book online is not universal? Is it because operators aren’t aware of the changes going on around them? Are they jumping to incorrect conclusions about the way their passengers are changing their shopping habits? Acting as a mystery shopper, I called half a dozen small operators to check whether they offered online bookings. One sales consultant for an operator that didn’t offer online booking told me: “A lot of our customers don’t use the internet.” You sure? If ‘a lot’ don’t, what about those who do use the internet?
Speaking for myself for a moment, I am now 68. I first used an Amstrad computer back in about 1988. Since then, I have used computers on a regular basis in employment, in business and when I am contributing to CBW. I shop online on a regular basis for groceries, clothing, CDs, DVDs, books, second-hand car parts, tools and so on via sites like eBay and Amazon and use the internet to book tickets for comedy nights, the cinema and shows. I have used the internet to book Airbnb accommodation and to bank online. Pretty much the full package including of course email but without, it must be said, much social media use apart from a LinkedIn account. I have become so proficient online that I haven’t had to call my son for help with a computer problem for about two years. Well done Dad. Surely I can’t be the only one with that level of expertise among the over-65s?
Internet shopping – look at the high street
You might be tempted at this point while looking at the ONS report to say: ‘Statistics, well, what do they prove? You can prove anything with statistics.’ Well, insofar as online shopping is concerned, you only have to look at high streets throughout the land and all those empty shops to see evidence of how people’s shopping habits are changing. Of course, the internet is not entirely to blame here: high rents and business rates don’t help but they become unsustainable costs when more and more people are shopping from their sofas.
Looking at the coach trade today, I have no doubt that there are other small and medium-sized operators who are doing very nicely, thank you, without their passengers having the facility to book online. The model they are currently using whereby passengers get in contact either by phone or in person at their friendly shop or office is working very well, so why change it? They may well point to their many happy passengers and say confidently that they don’t want to change the habits of a lifetime and pay online. That will also be true in many cases. But in the not too distant future, and the ONS report suggests it is on the doorstep, using the internet to shop online amongst an increasing number of people of all ages will be the habit of their lifetime.
Initially, the facility to book online may just be an option that no one is forced to use, but is there for the convenience of the customer. Looking at the ONS figures, how long will it be before not having an online booking facility becomes a serious detriment? Is that perhaps why operators like National Holidays, Shearings, Robinsons, Daish’s, Alfa and Edwards offer that very convenient option?
And by the way, if you’re wondering where I found most of the information in this article, I did a lot of the research for this piece via the internet over the course of a weekend. It’s very convenient…
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