During each UMA EXPO, BUSRide honors a motorcoach owner-operator who demonstrates drive, excellence and innovation with the Motorcoach Industry Achievement Award. This award recognizes solid accomplishment in business over the long-term, or significant singular achievements that have paved the way.
This year, during the 2013 UMA-NTA Travel Exchange in Orlando, FL, BUSRide presented the award to Peter Shelbo, president of Tour West America, Phoenix, AZ.
Pressed for time to present the award, BUSRide editor David Hubbard said he took a cue from history, and the film Lincoln, and scratched a few notes on the plane to Orlando, FL. It went something like this:
One score and seven years ago our recipient brought forth to this industry, a new company with one bus dedicated to the proposition that all snowbirds want more to do and an easier way to get there.
Now we are met at this inaugural event to honor him with the BUSRide Motorcoach Industry Achievement Award for the tour business he and his wife created and have nourished over these years.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. It is safe to say no other motorcoach company in the Southwest offers seasonal tour programs as varied and inviting.
Arizona snowbirds could not want for more. The array of itineraries touches on all interests and creates affordable outings-within-a-vacation that range from shopping jaunts and sports events to 10-day excursions as far away as San Francisco, with the company handling all the arrangements.
A lion’s share of the 270,000 winter residents who flock to Arizona annually to thaw out and recreate appreciate this man and his company for the many added opportunities to discover and explore in the comfort and convenience of a modern fleet of 19 safe and well-maintained coaches.
They will not likely forget what our recipient and his team do to make winter in the desert so enjoyable, fun and informative more times than not. They thank him by becoming repeat customers and spreading the word.
Unless I call him out by name, no one here will remember that it is Peter Shelbo and Tour West America who have seized upon this tremendous market niche and nobly advanced the cause of our industry through their full measure of devotion.
As it turned out, Peter Shelbo also received the UMA Small Operator Award during the UMA Vision Awards presentation. Visit him and Tour West America at www.tourwestamerica.com.