New City Sightseeing London tour launches on 20 May

Buses will wear the well known City Sightseeing red livery. STAGECOACH

Stagecoach and Grupo Julià are to commence operation of the City Sightseeing tour of London later this month

Stagecoach has joined forces with open-top bus brand City Sightseeing and Grupo Julià, a specialist in global tourism and mobility services, to launch a new sightseeing service for London.

The three partners believe that with the country gradually re-opening and people planning day trips and holidays, boosting domestic tourism will be absolutely crucial in supporting the restart of London’s economy, and in the longer term, encouraging the return of overseas tourism. The companies have therefore joined forces in a joint venture to launch the new service, which aims to ‘become the leading operator.’

City Sightseeing London will launch on 20 May and will offer an open-top hop-on, hop-off service giving visitors to the capital and Londoners a tour of the city’s most historic and iconic sights.

Staples such as Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral, among other iconic sights, will all be seen from the top deck of the tour, as well as a trip over Tower Bridge. The new tour promises an ‘entertaining and informative commentary’ which will be available in 11 languages.

City Sightseeing has a presence in over 100 destinations across six continents, and Grupo Julià operates sightseeing buses in 10 cities across the globe. Announcing the new venture, Enrique Ybarra, CEO of City Sightseeing, said: “Since we founded City Sightseeing, London has always been an inspiration. After developing the hop-on hop-off service around the world through more than 100 cities on six continents, I am very happy to see City Sightseeing at the cradle of the HO-HO business. Together with renowned partners Stagecoach and Grupo Julià, we want to provide the best experience to the city’s visitors, as we put all the experience gained and our industry network to make City Sightseeing London the leading operator.”

Paul Lynch, Regional Director for Stagecoach, added: “Buses will play a crucial role in the recovery of the country and of course, our capital city. Boosting domestic tourism is a key priority and as people now start to plan the return to doing the things they enjoy doing, such as day trips and staycations, the launch of this new open-top tour bus service will provide an easy, convenient and environmentally friendly way for people to tour the great sights of London.

“London is well-renowned all over the world for being an exciting and historic city that people want to visit, and by joining forces with City Sightseeing and Grupo Julià, we also have a great opportunity to encourage overseas visitors as soon as we are able.”

Jose Adell, CEO of Grupo Julià commented: “To offer the best hop-on hop-off service available in London: This is going to be the objective of Stagecoach Group, Grupo Julià and City Sightseeing in this new stage. Three operators, experts in our respective fields of activity and who share the vocation of service, quality and safety as three fundamental areas of our action.”

Stagecoach has confirmed to CBW that its megasightseeing.com London Tour and brand has now ended and that open-top Alexander Dennis Enviro400s 19131-6, previously used on that operation, will be re-liveried and used on the new joint venture.