A new award recognising the importance of the internet, social media and other electronic communication has been announced as part of the UK Coach Awards (UKCA) competition for 2018. Entries opened this week for what is the 10th annual contest.
UKCA Chairman, John Gilbert, commented: “Digital communication is a vital tool in the battle to win business, by helping to promote companies, brands and people. We’ll be looking for projects which used the best mix of online information and marketing tools to meet companies’ business objectives.”
Meanwhile, the search is also on to find the UK’s top Express Driver, Education Services river and Coach Touring Driver, as the split in the top driver category introduced last year has been retained by the awards organisers.
John Gilbert said: “We introduced the change to recognise the varying skills required by the widely differing types of work done by our coach operators. Driving express services and trying to keep time on congested motorways in Britain and Europe is a very different task from taking pupils and students to and from school or college; whilst looking after tour and charter customers on an expensive holiday is different again.
“We believe that it’s important to recognise and reward excellence in all three disciplines,” he added.
There will be minor changes to other categories following another round of extensive consultations with stakeholders by survey, email and meetings since the 2017 ceremony in May.
“The UK Coach Awards is the only national awards scheme dedicated solely to coach operators and their staff in all types of work,” said John.
“Our categories reflect the diverse skills required to deliver high quality coach operations, not only through digital communication and good marketing, but also excellent customer service.
“We cannot meet our customer expectations for quality and service without good staff: recognising and rewarding our people is a vital part of what we do.
“Our awards have a major part to play in recognising leading operators, business innovation, excellent managers, staff and operating crews, so we hope even more people will get on board with us in 2018.”
