You are a travel professional with occasional group tours in Spain and are planning ahead for the next bus tour. You are hoping to find a reliable minibus or coach hire company in Bilbao, Madrid, Malaga or Barcelona to transport your group on a one week or two week bus tour around Spain.
Windmills, Consuegra, Spain | Picture by Enrique Jimez
Easy bus quotes for your tour in Spain?
It should be an easy process, you would think. Correct? Contact bus rental companies in the city of departure and receive quotes. The reality is different. Many bus operators are flooded with emails and only reply to their regular clients. Other operators are busy and scan their emails for requests with trip dates that fit their fleet availability and will only respond if there is a match.
Response rates to requests for quotations are below 50 percent, and maybe this is why some tour operators send out RFQ emails to 10 or 20 operators at once. As bus operators see or sense this, their willingness to respond becomes even lower.
Here below we give you a list of tips on what to do and what not to do. The better you prepare, the better and more accurate your quote will be.
Step 1: make a detailed tour plan
Some bus companies really get flooded with quote requests. Travel agents and tour operators often send hard to read files that resemble more a puzzle than a plan.
For the bus rental company to calculate a quote, they need to know the number of days, working hours and kilometers to drive. This information should be clear with a quick glance at the document you send.
What to include in your tour plan
a) Clearly state departure point and arrival points for each leg in your bus tour
b) Use Google Maps to estimate the number of kilometers the bus will drive
c) Add starting time and end time for each service day. Bus companies need to know the hours the bus driver will be working in order to calculate their costs and your price quote
d) Use a clear structured Excel document that you can share so the operator can easily quote by adding their daily costs
e) If you have no clear plan yet but want to establish first contact and maybe get a preliminary reservation for your dates, try writing:
“Can you quote me on a 30 seater bus for a 10 full day (12 hours per day) bus tour with a maximum of 300 kilometers per day between May 1st and May 10th?”
f) Make sure to comply with European law regarding driving and resting times for bus drivers. Maximum 12 hour working days, 45 minute breaks after every 4.5 hours of driving, etc.
g) In order to compare your quotes, make sure you request all of them with the same requirements. Say:
“Please only quote me for the bus with driver rental”
“Do not include city taxes, parking fees, highway tolls, meals and hotel for the driver(s). We will take care of these.”
This allows you to have a clear comparison between all quotes you receive.
The Tower Of Gold in Seville, Spain | Picture by Chris Boland
Step 2: make a list of Spanish bus hire operators for initial contact
Not all operators do multi day tours. Many of them want to have their buses back in the garage by the end of the day.
How to approach operators
a) Check online on Google Maps or review platforms to see if a company is experienced with multi day tours
b) Reviews never tell the whole story but can give a good indication of how a company deals with clients
c) Write a short email to establish first contact before asking for a full quote. For example:
“Hey, we would like to check if you have availability to drive our group for a 10 day group tour in May. Let me know if you offer this service and I will send you a detailed plan.”
Only send the full plan if they respond positively
d) Be aware that Spain is a country where business is done based on good relationships. Any relationship needs various contact moments, so use tools like WhatsApp to stay in contact and nurture the relationship. This will make your bus rental process in Spain smoother.