1"The bottom line," said Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce executive director Mike Costello, "in all instances their operations were short-lived."
The Cape Ann Trolley Co. out of Gott Street in Rockport, for instance, only operated its double-decker trolley for a season.
Cape Ann, however, may have found her tour bus in a company started in Essex this spring.
Costello remembers telling Bob Marquis, 56, owner of Coastal Visits, located next to Schooner's Market on Eastern Avenue (Route 133), about the history of tour buses in Cape Ann before he started his business and the need to be flexible.
Marquis took his advice.
"I've had to be flexible in a business that is forever changing," he said yesterday.
In previous attempts to forge bus tours, Costello said that the companies, however innovative their style or enjoyable their tours, fell into the tradition of a set bus route. He could not say for sure what caused their downfall, but he said that this contributed to it.
Coastal Visits, however, is far from being locked into a single tour route. In fact, it is expanding beyond tours.
It is of Coastal Visits' flexibility that Costello said, "I think that's the saving grace."
When Marquis opened for business in early June, he planned to run a circuit around Cape Ann, stopping at sites in Essex, Gloucester and Rockport, such as Conomo Point, Stage Fort Park and Bearskin Neck.
However, his business has since incorporated far more than circles around the Cape.
Last Saturday, for instance, he bused the wedding party of a Scottish groom who was marrying an Essex woman. The groom's party, all dressed in kilts, wanted the bus service because they were unfamiliar with American roads and they also planned to do some drinking at the reception.
Marquis has also been providing shuttle services to Logan Airport in Boston. And this fall, after the tourist season ends, he plans on implementing a shuttle service from Cape Ann up Route 128 to the Burlington area.
According to Marquis, his service would be the only shuttle from Cape Ann going into Burlington. Plus, potential customers, he said, would be able to avoid the high gas price of commuting and the stop-and-go hassle of carpooling. Also unlike taking a car or a van, Marquis mentioned the spaciousness of his bus which has an interior reminiscent of airline seating and he talked about the possibility of installing WiFi service so passengers could use their computers on the way to work.
The tourism side of Marquis' business, he said, has also been serving largely private or corporate customers.
For example, Rule Industries in Gloucester chartered his bus to show visitors from corporations in Japan and England around Cape Ann.
He has also contracted with cruise ships that come into the harbor to take their passengers to Gloucester sites such as the schooner Thomas E. Lannon and the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center.
Because of his passengers' specific interests, Marquis said that his tours next summer will have themes. For instance, people interested in art will be able to visit a number of galleries around Cape Ann. Others who might be interested in Cape Ann's maritime heritage would be taken to any of a number of places that honor the region's famous ties to the sea.
Coastal Visits' ability to give tourists a quick overview of what is in Cape Ann is one of the features that Betsy Eck, owner of The Inn on Cove Hill in Rockport, finds really valuable for visitors.
Eck's inn has set up a number of small tours for Marquis this summer, and Eck said the tourists who came back mentioned to her how worthwhile the trip was because they were able to find the places that they wanted to see through his tour bus in a much shorter space of time then if they had gone exploring on their own.
People are amazed at how much there is to see in Cape Ann, Marquis said. "They think it can take a few hours but it really takes a few days and even then you're just scratching the surface," he said.
As diversified as his business is, however, Marquis said that he is only making enough money to cover costs. For instance, his bus gets nine to 11 miles to the gallon and he has to pay $5,000 a year in liability insurance.
However, he never got into tourism for the money.
"It's (about) creating a job that you want to get up to every day and go to work," he said.
When asked if he had achieved that job he replied, "I'm on my way."
Michael Farrell can be reached at gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com.
