samuishuttle

Mr Shuttle, I truly hope you are not driving the bus! The songthaew and yellow taxi drivers have strong groups; you would be infringing on their territory and I know many that drive with a big gun in the glovebox. Take care and good luck to you.

I have been threatened before duing a divorce and my other business operations in Samui and understand the risks and therefore have taken the following actions

1. No farang face on website, in brochures etc

2. No large signs "in the face" of competition.

3. Owner drivers are being used and the majority of them are Samuians - anyone can join.

4. We only take bookings and not roadside pickups.

5. We are focusiing on villa owners, small resorts, tour companies etc who are also looking for alternatives based on quality of service and in many instances are happier with the ability to communicate in English (sorry - not the Queens English).

6. We are small scale (at the moment) - There are potentially around 2500 tourists arriving and 2500 departing Samui everyday on BKK airways (I am sure someone will dispute these, but I took them from the BKK airways schedule and website). We are only working on getting 5% of these a day - that is 250 passengers or 25 bus trips with 10 or 31 bus trips of 8 pax ... there is still plenty of room for the others to carry on their current practices with.

Our key objective is to try and fix the "first impression" and "last impression". If we can get the visitor from the airport to the hotel without getting ripped off then that is a good start to the holiday and hopefully stops them having bad feelings right from the start ... if we can get them from the hotel to the airport in the same manner so that they go away with a good impression of Samui then that may mean they come back again soon. Obviously there is still a lot of things to sort out in between those times, but I have to start somewhere and work with the resources I have got (just a reminder we are still looking for staff).

Thanks to all for the personal messages of encouragement ...

Cheers

Better than todays "taxi"'service!

If what you mean is that we are not proving a direct alternative to taxis then you are correct. But we feel that taking them on directly would not be the right approach. Also we are only starting out ... the vision is that one day we will have shuttles running around the island continuously offering flat rate reasonable price service from point to point - that is why we are starting to set up the zone format ... pricing will eventually be between zones, no matter where you start or get dropped off. We also have a private rate and I am convinced that once I get some economies of scale then I can actually start to lower the prices ... but that will take some time.

Sure it would be good to have a better "taxi" service, and if we end up getting one and we can close the shuttle service down then I don't mind as it means I wont have to get up at 4am so often.

Making something better does not mean we have to replicate it, perhaps we can make it better by doing it a different way.

-so you say the taxies have a right to rip off people and we have to accept it.well there are taxies here also and they dont rip people off.its a matter of decency i suppose.accepting these kind of treatment which is wrong just to be seem like you are a very understanding person to their culture and you can blend in is NOT accepting to pay 300 bahts on a simple ride which actually costs 60 baths according to the law and fare.

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Hello

Firstly I would like to apologise to the moderators if this is considered inappropriate … if so feel free to take it off the forum and ban me and I will go back to my normal identity...

Secondly, I apologise to the forum readers if it is a bit long, but, I felt it necessary to provide sufficient detail to show that we are trying to fix a problem and also to show that it is not that easy, so any help from forum members to get this working would be appreciated.

I have the pleasure of announcing the establishment of Samui Shuttle (www.samuishuttle.com). Samui Shuttle is intended to be a fair priced / good service alternative to existing taxi and minibus services on Koh Samui. While we will never be the cheapest on the Island, we do intend to have listed prices, take single passengers at a time and we have a mix of Farang and Thai management to ensure that hopefully we can communicate needs, issues etc and therefore help with setting expectations as well as fixing problems.

As part of my other operations in Samui I have TAT licence, passenger insurance, and even have in my work-permit that I can assist "European" tourists (and therefore can stand at the airport holding up signs without worrying about Immigration etc). I also spend in excess of THB20,00 every month on minibuses and I continually hear complaints on the forum and elsewhere, so am trying to do some small thing to fix an obvious problem.

It is not easy for many reasons, but we have been operating quietly since January and already we are doing enough business to keep 2 minibuses relatively busy. We have done a couple of large groups where 5 buses were required and we have done many shuttle runs with small numbers of passengers – I personally do at least 2 x 4am shifts a week in order to show the drivers that it is not just them that is expected to be prepared to pick up a single passenger that requires an early morning transfer to the airport. One of the biggest issues is convincing the drivers that if we have 1 customer it is OK, because eventually a shuttle will get 10 lots of 1 customer and then it will be full and they will make more money than someone with a flat 500b rate (or flat 1,000 baht rate).

We have had teething problems and I am sure there will be many more, but the intention is to grow in a managed way so that we do not overextend ourselves, or we do not cause too much backlash from competitors.

Samui shuttle is a cooperative of owner drivers, so any driver can join but they have to adhere to some contractual agreements. We have even got a contract with a large operator on the island who takes up our excess … and they have agreed to our rates and service requirements.

We are attempting to get a counter in or near the airport and we are always interested in locations / hotels / bars etc that could be used as standby points. We do not take roadside pickups yet because we feel that would be too aggressive at the moment. We do want to make agreements with residents and villa owners such that we will make a point of finding out where the pickup / drop off point is (I and a driver go out and check them out). We draw them up on a map and keep it on file (we are working on a digital map and hope to have one soon) so that when you call we can easily instruct the drivers where you are.

We would like to grow "quietly" i.e. we do not want to put out too many "in-your-face" signs and put too much artwork on the buses. We would rather just get to a situation in a years time where we have created enough business for 20 or 30 buses and so then we can show our face and it is too late for the copycats or jealous competitors. In saying that, our website already generates good business with bookings coming in from all over the world.

So if any forum members need a shuttle (or general minibus) service, please contact us via the website. Also, we need a marketing person to go around the agents and hotels and to assist in the collection of bills and coordination of bookings. It would be good if they were computer literate – Work and Excel.

Please bear with us in the early days. It is not a truly regular shuttle business because we do not have the customers and do not have all of the hotels etc brought into the concept. We envision it to be just like any shuttle service you see elsewhere in the world, but know that it will take time to get there and it will always have some Thai idiosyncrasies about it.

Any recommendations, any support or any staff are welcome.

Regards

Samuishuttle