About Bus Booking

In 2014, Joe Andreas was working in trade fair logistics in Munich. He spent his days watching groups of exhibitors and conference delegates trying to get from their hotels to Messe München — and failing. Taxis were expensive and uncoordinated. Public transport didn't work for 40 people with booth materials. Hotel shuttles ran on their own schedule, which was usually "not helpful."

The idea was simple: what if there was one company that coordinated bus and coach transport for groups in Munich? Not a bus company — a booking platform that matched groups with the right vehicle and the right driver, handled the logistics, and made sure everyone arrived on time. That was Bus Booking in its first year: Joe, a phone, a network of Munich bus operators, and a lot of trade fair shuttle runs.

2018 was the year Bus Booking stopped being a Munich company and became a European one. We added Paris and Amsterdam first — two cities with huge group transport demand, complex logistics, and clients who were already asking us to cover them. Then Frankfurt, Berlin, and Barcelona followed.

The model that made it work was the partner network. We didn't try to buy buses in Paris. We found the best operators in Paris — companies with local knowledge, good vehicles, reliable drivers — and built long-term partnerships. We handle the client relationship, the quoting, the coordination. They handle the driving. Everyone does what they're best at.

When COVID shut down trade fairs and conferences in March 2020, it shut down most of our business overnight. No events meant no group transport. But rather than hibernate, we pivoted to what was needed: medical transport logistics. Hospital staff shuttles, vaccination centre support, essential worker transfers. It wasn't glamorous, but it kept our partner network alive and our team employed.

When trade fairs and corporate events roared back in 2022, we were ready. The partner relationships we'd maintained through the pandemic meant we had vehicle availability when competitors didn't. The backlog of postponed events created the busiest year in Bus Booking's history.