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T e Great Canadian coach led 35,000 marchers on a parade to Toronto's City Hall. The following day, as the votes were coming in and it looked like the sepa- ratists would win — the vote ended up swinging the other way, by less than one percentage point — the couple decid- ed that all of Great Canadian's coach- es would be dedicated to Canada. They hired a local artist to paint dif erent Cana- dian themes, and, as Larry put it, "to in- still Canadian pride, awareness and ev- erything great about Canada." EYE-CATCHING COACHES To this day, Great Canadian's coaches stand out, painted with a prominently fea- tured Canadian f ag and the carrier's logo, which features a red maple leaf. "Wherever we travel, people take pic- tures of the buses," Larry says. "T ey instill a tremendous amount of pride in our cli- ents and the people who see them." The artist also created a mascot that Great Canadian named Corporal Mack- enzie, a seven-and-a-half-foot tall beaver that wears a Mountie costume, that is fea- tured in promotions and the operator's marketing material. "I'm very proud of the impact we made with our themed coaches and dedication to Canadian pride," Larry says. DIVERSE OFFERINGS What has made Great Canadian suc- cessful, Larry says, is diversif cation and the work Lorna did to develop the tour business. "We make sure that every year we adapt [tours] to the different and changing needs of the traveler, because the average age of the traveler is going down," Lorna says. "With that comes a whole new set of experiences they want on motorcoaches. It is very dif erent than it was 20 years ago." A critical aspect of Greater Canadi- an's success has been its ability to con- stantly be innovative in creating new tours to adapt to its customers' ever- evolving interests. Larry and Lorna worked with travel agents to develop a variety of products to appeal to people in dif erent age groups and with a variety of interests. For example, Great Canadian offers multi-day Independent Getaways, a se- ries of tours to many major cities in North America, including New York, Chica- go, Boston, Quebec City and Montre- al. T e tours are popular with all age de- mographics, Michelle Tupman, director, tour operations, and daughter of Lorna and Larry, says. "People want to go to those cities, but they all have dif erent interests and want to do their own thing," Lorna adds. "T ere are so many dif erent options for what to do once they are there. T e getaways give them a lot of free time but within the space of the group." Travelers can experience the city on their own, which is a deviation from the traditional structure of the motorcoach tour, Michelle points out. The Getaways, she adds, make it less intimidating for people to go to a big city, because they don't have to drive or fig- ure out how to get to the subway or where to stay. "It gives them a worry-free and com- fortable way to get there," Michelle says. "T ey [can] still have that family experi- ence and there's a tour director on board to help them." Great Canadian has a diverse mix of local and international tour companies renting its motorcoaches in addition to its own tour business, ranging from Jon- view Tours, a major inbound tour oper- ation from Europe, to the Canadian Au- tomobile Association and Your Casino Express, forming lasting partnerships with at least 35 dif erent tour companies over the years. "Great Canadian has been able to work with a number of tour companies that have come to us because of the qual- ity of our coaches and drivers," Larry says. "Working with the competition is not a concern of theirs." The carrier diversified its business into a number of other areas to keep from depending too heavily on its tour and coach business by moving from an 11,500 square-foot building where driv- ers had to park coaches on the street at night to three-and-a-half acres of proper- ty, bought with the intention of building a new facility, in 2008. While expanding business during the market crash was scary, Larry says, Great 41 APRIL 2014 m ETRO m AGAZINE > problem solving, with Lorna and Larry working hard to adapt and grow the tour business when many others were closing their doors, Larry says. In 2004, due to some opportunities that arose not long after two traumatic events — 9/11 and the SARS epidemic, which hit Canada particularly hard — Great Ca- nadian experienced a signif cant growth spurt. "The tour business, particularly the international business, was in a state of shock after those events," Hundt recalls. However, the Hundts were able to turn those setbacks into opportunities, finding high quality, well priced, pre- owned motorcoaches to expand the op- eration's f eet. During that dif cult time, a major op- erator in Toronto lost most of its business. Great Canadian was able to secure some large international inbound operations that came to the Toronto market and buy some of that carrier's coaches to help ac- commodate the additional business. Another significant turning point for Great Canadian happened in 1995, when residents of the province of Quebec were considering a referendum asking wheth- er they wanted to secede from Canada and become an independent state. As a result, the carrier participated in a rally, which led it to a decision that may have gained it more exposure. With polls showing the week before the deciding vote that Quebec was favoring separation, rallies were held in Montre- al and Toronto, Larry recalls. T e Hundt family, along with friends and neighbors, participated in that rally with a specially decorated coach. Deeply af ected by the issue, the couple decided to make a statement: they hired an artist to paint one of their coaches with scenes representing Canada from coast to coast and dedicated the vehicle to Ca- nadian unity. With its patriotic décor, the coach drew the attention of a prominent Toronto politician, who amassed 80 bus- es to go to the rally, Larry says. "Every other politician was doing the same thing, [with] school buses, trains [and] planes. We ended up being the f ag- ship coach, with all the VIPs and staff on board and a lot of f ags f ying, people showing a lot of emotion," he recalls. CONTINUES ON PAGE 45 M E T R O 0 4 1 4 _ O P E R T O R . i n d d 4 1 METRO0414_OPERTOR.indd 41 3 / 1 7 / 1 4 5 : 5 6 P M 3/17/14 5:56 PM