Wedding Shuttle Services – A Case Study
Today’s case study is one in a series of papers prepared by Kevin Smith Transportation Group. This weekly series will focus on real-world issues our clients bring to us, how our Project Teams work with those same clients to understand their opportunities and how together we develop and implement a solution.
Are you planning a Wedding and want to work with the best in Wedding transportation? Call Kevin Smith Transportation Group today at 610-222-6225 and let one of our Wedding Coordinators arrange all of your Wedding transportation. They will handle everything, from shuttle services for your guests to moving your Bridal Party from pictures to ceremony to reception, leveraging our entire fleet of Limos, Party Buses and Wedding Shuttles.
Introduction
Wedding Shuttle Services are typically requested when the wedding venue is separate from the hotel where the guests are staying. Many Brides and Grooms arrange Wedding Shuttle Services at the beginning and end of their wedding reception to transfer their guests safely and conveniently. These services are separate from the traditional Wedding transportation services like Limos or Party Buses for the Bridal Party.
Most hotels in the greater Philadelphia, PA area offer local shuttle services to their hotel guests for transportation to local dining or shopping venues. However, they typically don’t provide larger group transfers due to the strain it places on the shuttle, its availability to other guests and the challenges of timing (many Weddings end late into the night).
Our analysis showed that by building out a shuttle solution, divided across the beginning and end of the reception, provided an efficient, reliable and luxurious transportation solution to our Brides and Grooms.
Background
We were initially approached by a local hotel chain with 8 properties in the area. Each of their locations had their own small shuttle that they leveraged for their business clients during the week. Local runs to restaurants or business offices were very popular.
Weekends and weddings caused their own unique challenge. Brides and Grooms were coming to them looking for shuttle services for their wedding guests, often numbering 100 or more people. They had no wat to support it.
With our large fleet of Party Buses and Shuttles, we were uniquely qualified to support these needs, building out a shuttle solution for going to and returning from a reception. This solution helped the hotels drive larger room blocks, no longer worried about the transportation and the Brides and Grooms ended up with a luxury transportation partner whose focus was on weddings.
Are you planning a Wedding and want to work with the best in Wedding transportation? Call Kevin Smith Transportation Group today at 610-222-6225 and let one of our Wedding Coordinators arrange all of your Wedding transportation, from shuttle services to your Bridal Party with our fleet of Limos, Party Buses and Wedding Shuttles.
Alternatives
When the hotel approached us, they were considering purchasing a larger shuttle for each of their properties. However, this would cost them over $500,000, depreciated over 3 years. Add in the requirement for CDL licensed drivers, labor, overtime and insurance and quickly they realized this was not the right direction for them.
They were becoming a shuttle company and that was not the business they wanted to be in. The cost and risk just didn’t make sense.
Proposed Solution
Ultimately, the solution was a partnership with our company. Already operating a fleet of Party Buses and Shuttles, we were able to simply scale up our number of vehicles as weddings were booked in the future.
We have a team of licensed, screened and trained chauffeurs so labor is not an issue for us. We work closely with both with the hotels and the Brides and Grooms to ensure the logistics are well-managed.
We view both sides as our clients and by doing so, we build out a successful solution for all parties. In this case, shuttling the wedding guests both to and from the reception and back to the hotel is handled professionally and seamlessly.
Recommendations
As most hotels work with multiple venues, it is also important we have working relationships with them as well. So in addition to working closely with the hotels, we also build relationships with each venue.
A coordinated effort by our Wedding Planners ensures that every shuttle solution built works seamlessly with the venues, hotels and the guests of the wedding.
Thank you for reading today’s Case Study on Wine Tour Transportation. Hopefully, you found this information insightful and you will be able to apply some of these solutions to your specific transportation challenges. For more case studies on the ground transportation industry, visit our case study blog page.