Richards Blog 19.05.10 – Kind of blue!

First of all a chance to use the title of my favourite Miles Davis track but things are still tough here and became really tough on Monday when we found that we have competition on our Cliffs of Moher tour from Limerick now we have survived many competitors over our 13 seasons in Limerick (lucky for some!) but these are a particularly difficult bunch to fight, they are one company that only seems to aspire to world domination! We have lost a sizeable chunk of our Dublin business to them already and they have slightly undercut us on price in Limerick, much as I feel like turning this into another rant I’am going to be strong and resist just to say that behind all the cuddly sheep and leprechauns lies a ruthless competitor and whilst they are only promoted as being small they are turning into by far the biggest day tour operator in Ireland, in fact I think they would like to turn into the only one someday!

I have the answer, there is only one way to compete and that is to change – wait for it! Precisely nothing, we will keep on doing what we do best and what we have loved doing for the last 13 years and that is giving the best quality tours with the kind of personal service that only small companies like us can give and do you know I’am loving the adrenaline rush of fighting for our business, I honestly believe that our quality and the fact that we have perfected our Cliffs tour to give an informative yet leisurely paced tour over the last 13 years will help us compete and while we wont win all the business I hope we will still get the same kind of lovely customers we have enjoyed in the past, after all as you may know, I’am not greedy and if I can scrape a living doing the job I love then I’am quite happy, we are certainly not in the business of muscling in on markets that were adequately served by small operators – there is a living for everyone that is not too greedy!

So its business as usual and whilst I wont pretend Chris and me don’t care, in fact a few tears were shed on Monday night because the timing of this couldn’t be worse business was terrible already without loosing what precious few customers we have! Ideas are still flying round in this muddled old brain and we have come up with one that will take our business by storm, it is new and it is certainly daring but it will show how much faith we have in what we do – watch this space interesting times are ahead for Barratt Tours – bring it on!