Our Launch of the ‘Wish You Could Hear’ Coach Sector Campaign
09.11.20 · Coach Insurance
Today (November 9), we take great pride in being able to put our efforts behind a campaign in support of the coach sector – one of our core markets as a specialist bus and coach insurance broker.
For many months, we have admired the work of the ‘Honk for Hope’ campaign and have looked for a way in which to support it. We have now created a campaign focused on getting more financial pandemic support for the coach sector and which sends a clear message to the Government – ‘Wish You Could Hear’.
At its core level, this has involved the production of a retro postcard, which carries the spin on the popular holiday postcard message of yesteryear, as well as an image of a coach of the same era, travelling the route around Great Orme in Llandudno.
We have made an oversized version of the postcard, so that we can use it in photo calls that will help raise awareness of the plight of the coach sector. We will try to arrange such photo calls with our local MP and other influencers, as we push the message out.
Our launch photo call has been the first of these and it took place with operator J&B Travel Ltd, a family run firm based in Stanningley, Leeds, which has suffered the same devastating impacts as its fellow operators during the pandemic.
We have also had a stock of postcards printed and will be sending a postcard to all of our local Leeds MPs, plus selected others, including Chancellor Rishi Sunak. We are also issuing unstamped postcards to our clients, so they can send a card on to their own local MP and we are happy to send out cards, on request, to other coach companies who wish to use the powerful mechanism in order to lobby their own MP.
We plan to involve visitor attractions, any celebrities that operators may know and community groups that rely on coach travel. Our ultimate aim would be to get former ‘Wish You Were Here’ TV presenter, Judith Chalmers’, support but we recognise that a budget would be required for that.
Paul Coates, one of our directors here, says: “If we can get 500 cards sent out to MPs and other influencers, we should be able to start to make a bigger noise about the need for the Government to listen to the sector’s cries for help and do more than has been done so far. Ministers are simply not grasping the devastating impacts on family businesses in the coach sector and what that means for their livelihoods, their homes and their family life.”
Fellow director, Ian McCarron, adds: “Things have gone on far too long without satisfactory responses from the Government. Our ‘Wish You Could Hear’ campaign should drive the message home that people are simply not listening. The message comes from the heyday of coach travel, which helped build the UK tourism industry. We want to remind Government what the coach sector has contributed to the economy and evoke childhood and nostalgic memories of coach tours, to try to finally get some concrete action and financial support.”
Speaking about the campaign, Paul Lynn, a director at J&B Travel said: “Our industry needs all the support it can get, and who better to provide that than our insurance broker. We hope this campaign can succeed in having its message heard as, sadly, it appears that the only MPs who feel that our coach industry is dynamic enough to support, are those of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Myself and my colleagues throughout this country thank McCarron Coates for its support.”
Anyone wishing to have cards to send to their local MPs and any other targets, should email info@mccarroncoates.com with their address details and number of cards required, or call 0113 298 3489. We want to get as much support as possible and every card may count.
As Paul Coates says: “Together we can do this and all it will cost an operator is a bit of time, to find the contact details of their MP, and a few stamps. We hope operators will share news of the initiative on social media and help us make the noise that we wish to generate behind our powerful ‘Wish You Could Hear’ message.