I spoke to Marc Morgan Huws about his new role at Isle of Wight Steam Railway and tapping into the high-value leisure market
Marc Morgan-Huws has worked in senior roles for Go-Ahead and First Bus
There are few multi-modal transport professionals around, fewer still those who have traded roles in the bus sector for a preserved railway or a ‘10 mile museum’! Marc Morgan Huws is one of this rare species, with a CV that includes being council leader for the Isle of Wight, heading up Southern Vectis, and senior commercial and general management roles elsewhere in Go-Ahead and First Bus.
As the architect of First’s successful ‘Adventures by Bus’ brand, it was perhaps unsurprising that he made the move elsewhere into tourism, back on his island homeland, running the Isle of Wight Steam Railway which was recently designated museum status; hence its ‘10 mile museum’ strapline. With the summer season climaxing soon and my fascination with all things leisure and transport, I caught up with garrulous Marc to check how his summer has fared, as a barometer into the wider tourism market.
“The summer has been really mixed and there’s no discernible pattern,” he tells me.
“Some months we are up, some we are down. Having said that, about two-thirds of our revenue is earned between August and December, so it’s too early to predict really.
“We have a number of distinct markets and periods – school holidays, non-school holiday, the coach market, free to enter events that tend to attract locals and high value events such as our four-day August Bank Holiday Steam Fayre.
“After those, we have the October half-term when we’re besieged with wizards and witches, then an intensive and extended Christmas”.
The unique challenge for the Isle of Wight Steam Railway is that it is somewhat at the mercy of the ferry companies.
“While we benefit from being a tourist destination, one of our risks is that the two ferry operators can influence visitor numbers to the island, both in terms of availability, but especially price,” Marc laments.
“Looking to next year we are already planning how we can increase our penetration of the ‘domestic’ island population.”
Like many of its peers, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway has a mindset of seeing its role as a commercial attraction – a broad one that appeals to a wide, diverse market.
The money we make from visitors who value and appreciate nostalgia, heritage and a great day out funds the fabulous restoration and preservation of our ‘10-mile museum’. It’s a simple and well understood balance.
“The money we make from visitors who value and appreciate nostalgia, heritage and a great day out funds the fabulous restoration and preservation of our ‘10-mile museum’,” he says. “It’s a simple and well understood balance.
“The railway itself sits at the heart of our attraction. We think it’s one of the best period preserved railways in the UK, a unique representation of what island railways were about – rather than simply an amalgamation of locomotives, Mk 1 carriages and a length of line to run them along. We’ve a very clear brief that we work to deliver, so that the sum of the parts is greater than them individually. What we have surrounding that unique railway though, is a visitor attraction that seeks to appeal to the broad visitor market. We’re rail enthusiasts through and through, but we know that to appeal to a wider market we have to offer more than a train ride, even a unique one. We’re a visitor attraction with a heritage railway at the heart of it.”
Accordingly, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway has continued to invest in the non-heritage, non-rail facilities that visitors demand, recognising it is competing with a diverse and mature range of other visitor attractions on the island for its customers. Marc elaborates: “We’ve very much concentrated that investment into our Havenstreet site which benefits from infrastructure that a visitor attraction needs – multiple and varied catering and bar outlets, a large car park, good toilets, a decent shop that appeals to the wider visitor market and our large events field. For this season we invested £85k in fitting out our modern chic new cafe and bar”.
The investment will continue over the next three years as the railway refurbishes and repositions the original café to meet market expectations, renews and expand children’s activities and provides more infrastructure to allow the railway to host more events and enhance the non-railway element of any visit.
Many preserved railways are in financial difficulties. However, that long-term concentration on the broader visitor market that Marc referred to, and a long period of very sound financial management following a wobble around 30 years ago, has created a very sound and stable financial situation. There are significant reserves and the railway covers all of its running costs, including rolling stock overhauls, from operating revenues.
“Our approach is to invest in the future, and we have the headroom and revenue streams to do that,” says Marc. “Heritage and nostalgia are as strong a draw as ever. There’s very much a market, but it’s really important to broaden it.
Some trips on preserved railways feel pricey. Marc suggests: “It depends on what you’re offering. A fare represents travel. An entry represents a visitor attraction. We’re the latter. Yes, you pay to ride the trains (as much as you like for the day), but our price is competitive in the visitor attraction market.”
If we all wanted ‘cheap and purely purposeful’, the roads of Britain would be filled with nothing but Dacia Sanderos!
I’ve always admired Marc as one of the most entrepreneurial and outspoken of transport folk, and he doesn’t hold back: “I’ve worked in commercial bus for 25 years, but I’ve always been critical of most of that sector. Time and time again for the last 10 years of my bus career for a big group I was hounded by ‘head office’ people. They berated me for not following their one trick pony approach of offering ‘discounted travel’. The team must be bored senseless of me pointing out that if we all wanted ‘cheap and purely purposeful’, the roads of Britain would be filled with nothing but Dacia Sanderos!
“I’m a firm believer in offering a high value product – high quality and decent prices that allow for quality and onward investment.
The best bus companies provide just that. I’m not sure there is really a market in many sectors where piling it high and pricing it low works in the long term.
“In my experience, price is rarely the deciding factor for a purchase – we have to be conscious of affordability, but ultimately, we know that what customers really want is great quality – exceeding their expectations. Something that makes them go home and tell their family and friends how great an experience they have had – with photos to share across social media of that experience. If you look at our Tripadviser ratings, that’s clear”.
Marc regales me with childhood memories that are also my own: “I’m of an age where my mother used to bring me beans on toast while I sat and watched Mr Benn. I’m obsessed with getting to the point where we are delivering a Mr Benn moment – where our visitors arrive from the modern day then step through the wardrobe door into another world.”
The Isle of Wight Steam Railway’s added value products and experiences have seen strong growth. It regularly sells-out First Class upgrades and its on-board hamper and footplate experiences sell themselves.
“There are definitely people out there who aren’t struggling to spend,” says Marc. “Those who can want to get more from their spend – a bit like you with your model railway, Alex”.
Thank goodness discretionary spending is increasing as I’m told it costs “a fortune” to run a heritage railway in 2024. The increased cost of coal, materials, heating and labour have been huge in the heritage rail sector.
“It’s made the sector increase ticket prices like we never felt confident to do previously,” says Marc.“But the reality is that so long as we have been offering great value and nostalgia in shovel-loads, the customer hasn’t been put off”.
With model shops closing down at a rapid rate and my observations of fewer trainspotters at platform ends, I worry about the shrinking rail enthusiast market. Marc isn’t fretting: “Who says it is shrinking? I’m not sure it is at all. Our customers and our all-important volunteers keep coming – in both groups it isn’t gricers. We attract volunteers who love the nostalgia and the atmosphere of the railway – they may become rail enthusiasts, but we don’t need them to be!”
Marc’s pistons are going fast now: “I don’t think it’s just about heritage. I spent most of my career in bus in tourist markets. I learnt very early on that leisure travel is a high value product, and one that people aspire to buy. It’s not your typical distress purchase.
There’s a holy grail in any bus company where you overlay leisure travel on top of local travel. If you can add 10% onto your revenue line from leisure travel you’ve just doubled your typical profit margin
“There’s a holy grail in any bus company where you overlay leisure travel on top of local travel. If you can add 10% onto your revenue line from leisure travel you’ve just doubled your typical profit margin.
He continues at pace: “My fear for bus and for rail as the bus sector becomes regulated and franchised, and as rail is morphed back into full Department for Transport control, is that the commercial drive for sweating networks and routes through identifying, packaging and branding leisure travel will be lost. There’s a real danger that franchising authorities are mesmerised by a London model which is all about urban transit networks. Across much of the UK, the market isn’t about mass transit.
“I spent years trying to convince Cornwall Council that painting all the buses bland uniform red and producing a single piece of information rather than marketing materials would deliver a net reduction in revenues as the leisure market contracted. That market is excitable and aspirational, but it needs to be marketed to like any such product.
Marc’s on a roll and you sense he has unfinished business in the conventional transport space: “I don’t think the sectors are in the right mindset to understand and package some outstanding products that they already have. If you’ve travelled the branch and mainlines of Britain’s rail network, or whiled away days travelling on spectacular bus journeys across Britain’s stunning countryside like we both have, you understand the potential. I cannot comprehend how the bus and rail sectors haven’t generally understood the leisure value of the products they are already selling – often seeing them purely as distress purchases.
Boom or no boom, rail and bus have a huge opportunity that they aren’t anywhere near fully exploiting
“There are great examples – look at how the Settle to Carlisle Community Rail Partnership sells the leisure overlay on their line, so too Blazefield’s 36 with its customer-centric proposition, and at those other companies who use Ray Stenning’s Best Impressions or your Great Scenic Journeys offering to draw out the opportunities to sell high value leisure travel across their killer routes. It’s baffling that the majority of the bus sector pays no attention to a revenue source that simply layers additional high-value revenue upon parts of their networks. Boom or no boom, rail and bus have a huge opportunity that they aren’t anywhere near fully exploiting.”
And as he draws breath momentarily, Marc scurries off to his conference room which unashamedly doubles up as a fascinating emporium of transport books for visitors, where he’s organising a customer service training programme for volunteers and staff.
“Our visitors give us great feedback, but we need everyone to get the ‘Wow Factor’, to tell a friend,” he explains. “Only by achieving that can we take our 10-mile museum to the next level. We simply cannot be complacent”. Amen to all that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alex Warner has over 30 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector. He is co-founder of recruitment business Lost Group and transport consultancy AJW Experience Group (which includes Great Scenic Journeys). He is also chair of West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration and chair of Surrey FA.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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The post From buses to a ‘10-mile museum’ first appeared on Passenger Transport.