A destination management company plans and runs events, tours and transport for clients from elsewhere, and hires local suppliers. For a chauffeur company it is a customer that buys transport many times a year. To get on its list, have licences and insurance ready, quote quickly, offer one contact who answers at night, and start with a small job. Check payment dates and cancellation terms before saying yes.
What is a DMC, and why should a chauffeur company care?
A destination management company, or DMC, is a local firm that plans and runs trips, events and transport for clients from elsewhere. The association for the trade, ADMEI, defines it as a professional services company “possessing extensive local knowledge, expertise, and resources”, specialising in “the design and implementation of events, activities, tours, transportation, and program logistics”.
For you, a DMC is a customer that buys transport many times a year and rarely advertises for suppliers. A conference for 300 people or a week-long incentive trip needs airport arrivals, transfers to dinners and cars on standby, and the DMC has to find someone reliable to run all of it. One relationship can bring work that you would otherwise have to win one traveller at a time.
Transport is close to the centre of what they do. ADMEI’s membership rules require a DMC to provide “Tours and Transportation and at least two of the following: Event Management, Activities, Program Logistics”.
Where does your company sit in the chain?
A DMC hires local suppliers for what it does not run itself, and executive cars are often among them. You sell to the DMC, and the DMC sells a complete programme to its client.
- The client A corporate planner, an agency, an association or a foreign tour operator wants an event or a trip in your area.
- The DMC It designs the programme, prices the whole thing and hires local suppliers.
- Your company You receive a request for vehicles, times and routes, and you quote the DMC.
- The passenger Your driver meets someone who may never hear your company’s name, because they are the DMC’s guest.
That last step shapes the whole job. You are often working under another company’s name, and your driver is part of its client’s experience. So the DMC cares about reliability and discretion well before it cares about your brand, and it may ask you to carry its signs and follow its instructions. If your goal is to build your own name with travellers, this work will not do it. It brings volume, and it can fill days that would otherwise be quiet.
What does a DMC want from a supplier?
ADMEI says DMCs have “established relationships with local vendors” and that they “can often negotiate better rates than going direct”. Two things follow from that: they already have somebody, and they expect a trade price. To get on the list, you need to make their job easier than the supplier they use today.
- Written proof: licences, insurance certificates and vehicle details in a form they can pass to a client. ADMEI asks its own members for licences and at least $1M or equivalent of general liability insurance, so expect them to ask you similar questions.
- Fast, complete quotes: a programme can change daily while it is being sold, and a DMC needs prices by vehicle and by hour that it can adjust without calling you each time.
- A single contact: someone who answers during the event, including at night and at the weekend, and who can solve a problem without sending it back to them.
- Capacity you can prove: how many vehicles you own, how many you can bring in from trusted partners and which of them carry your standards.
- Clear rates for the season: net rates by vehicle and service, with what is included and how long they hold. The net rates guide explains how to set them.
How do you find them and get on their list?
Start with a short list of the DMCs that run programmes in your area. ADMEI’s website is one place to start, along with your tourism board, convention bureau and any local events association. Hotels with conference rooms will often know which DMCs bring groups, as will the venues you already drive to.
Write to the operations or programme manager with a short email and your partner pack. Say which area you cover, which vehicles you have and what you can handle in one day. Offer to quote on one small job, because a DMC will rarely hand a major programme to someone it has not tried. First work is often a small test, and the way you handle a late flight on that job decides whether a bigger one follows. The partner pack guide covers what to include, and our outreach work for Irish Transfer shows the same approach with agencies.
Time your approach to how they plan. Programmes for the next season get built months ahead, so autumn and winter suit a first conversation in markets where summer is the busy period. The slow season guide explains why that is also when you have the time for it.
What should you check before saying yes?
A large programme can look like a great month and end as a cash problem, so read the terms carefully.
- Payment dates: DMCs are often paid by their client after the event and may pay you later still. Ask for the terms in writing, and work out whether you can carry fuel and wages until then. Ask for a deposit on large jobs.
- Cancellation: an event can be cancelled weeks ahead. Agree what you are paid if it is, because you may have turned down other work for those days.
- Changes: times shift during events. Agree what happens to waiting time, extra hours and late changes, and how you will record them.
- Subcontracting: if you need more cars than you own, tell the DMC. Most want to know who is actually driving their guests, and the same goes for the insurance on those vehicles.
- Your regular customers: a large job can use every car you own. Decide in advance how much of your fleet you will commit, so that you do not let down the people who book you every month.
How do you know if it is worth it?
Count the margin per vehicle hour and compare it with your ordinary work. Trade rates are lower than public prices, so a programme only earns its place if it fills time that would otherwise be empty, or if the volume makes up for the lower rate. Note how long the quoting took as well, because some DMCs ask for many quotes and award few of them.
After each job, write down what went wrong, how much it paid and how quickly the money came. After a season you will know which DMCs are worth your best weekends and which should only get your quiet ones.