ORLANDO, Fla. UMA Motorcoach Expo 2009 will feature more than a dozen focused educational sessions designed to help coach company owners and managers make their operations more successful.

The two days of workshops, presentations and panel discussions offer a variety of topics covering three principal areas: Marketing and sales, finance and operations.

Here are the educational sessions scheduled for Expo 09:

Thursday, Jan. 22

9 a.m.4 p.m. Maintenance Interchange. This session, which is closed to vendors, is the only place where motorcoach owners, operators and maintenance professionals can participate in an open discussion about common maintenance issues.

9 a.m.--10 a.m. Dawn of a New Age. This high-profile panel session will focus on the impact of the new charter bus rule and how important it can be to our industrys future. Learn what other motorcoach operators have done to take over contracts previously performed by transit authorities, challenges they experienced during the transition, and assurances they had to give customers that the work would be done as well as their predecessor, and everything they had to do to execute effectively.

1010:45 a.m. Legislative & Regulatory Update. Attendees will be brought up to speed on key federal legislative and regulatory initiatives, as well as gain insights into what we can expect from the new administration and 112th Congress.

11 a.m.-Noon Morning

Concurrent Sessions

Marketing & Sales: Reaching the International Customer. The number of inbound international travelers continues to grow. This session will discuss ways to reach the international customer and ensure that the services you deliver meet their expectations.

Finance: Obtaining Financing During a Tough Economy. Attendees will learn what they need to do to secure financing for that new or pre-owned coach or other business purposes during the nationwide credit crunch.

Operations: New Places to Recruit Drivers. Hiring drivers remains at the top of our industrys "most-wanted" list. But where do you find them? This session will feature operators who have uncovered new places to recruit drivers and succeeded in bringing them into their driver pool.

Noon1:45 p.m. Operator Lunch: Getting Mentally Ready for the Dawn of a New Age. Attendees will learn to transform their thinking about the current changes taking place in the motorcoach industry, and receive real tools on how to manage change, reexamine their business and allow it to reach the next level. Learn how to take risks, fail successfully, unleash limitations and be a catalyst for change that allows your business to explode in ways you never thought possible.

2--3 p.m. Afternoon

Concurrent Sessions

Marketing & Sales: Achieving Maximum Results through Unconventional Marketing Techniques. One of the main challenges our industry has historically faced has been in the area of marketing. In challenging and uncertain times, marketing is key to assure your business can navigate through the most taxing times. This session will present basic, easy-to-implement and inexpensive techniques to maximize your ROM Return on Marketing, increasing sales and boosting profits.

Finance: Coop-ition New Watchword for the Motorcoach Industry. With the new charter bus rule going into effect operators may be required to reach out and work with competing companies to fulfill a large charter order. It may even mean working and sharing resources with the local transit operator. Ultimately, it means cooperating with competitors, hence the term coop-ition. In this session operators will learn what they will need to do be successful in the future.

Operations: Educating Drivers to Better Manage Fuel Consumption. Have you trained your drivers to be mindful of how much the consumption of fuel eats into your bottom line, eroding profits and potentially reducing employee benefits? Find out what companies are doing to teach their drivers how to better manage fuel when they are on the road.

3:15--4:15 p.m.

Concurrent Sessions

Marketing & Sales: Working with Your Local Transit Authority.* Working with your local transit authority does not have to be contentious. Learn how to forge a meaningful working relationship with your local transit agency. This session will help you understand their needs and how they even might be compatible with yours to help assure the integrity of the charter bus rule remains intact.

Finance: Coop-ition New watchword for the Motorcoach Industry (contd).

Operations: 2010 Engine Emission Issues. It seems like just yesterday we were gearing up for 2007 engine emission standards. Well, one year from Expo, well see a new batch of engines coming off the assembly line built to meet even more stringent emissions standards. Learn what the engine manufactures and OEMs are doing to get ready for this next generation of engines.

Friday, Jan. 23

8:309:30 a.m. Expectations of Tour Operators and Charter Operators. This panel of leading coach and tour operators will explore how to marry the needs of each party to maximize the benefit to the customer. Panelists will discuss the needs of tour operators versus those of motorcoach operators. The session will cover hours-of-service, safety, accessible buses and other ADA issues, how to find a good bus company, drivers working with escorts, and other customer service issues -- what the tour operator wants for their customer.

9:30--10:30 a.m. Marketing & Sales: Leveraging the Internet to Boost Sales. More and more charter orders, contract work, corporate shuttles and other lucrative pieces of business are coming through the internet. Are you tapping into the best resources available so that next search finds your website? Are you optimizing search engines so your company appears first in a search engine? Attendees will find out how to boost sales by learning what larger companies do to make sure they are listed first when potential customers are searching for one of their products/services.

9:30 10:30 a.m. Finance: Managing Accounts Receivable.* Too often companies allow owed monies to age well beyond 30 days, often forcing them to dip into reserves, or worse, borrow money at high short-term rates to pay bills. In the meantime, the customer hangs on to its dollars, leaving the coach operator strapped for cash. Learn how to get paid in a timely manner while still maintaining a solid and long-term business relationship with your customers.

9:3010:30 a.m. Operations: Specing a Vehicle for Operating Efficiencies. When buying a vehicle, do you think about what you should do at the point of sale to ensure that that coach operates at peak profitability from the moment you put it into service? What should you be looking for in a new vehicle? Find out from other operators how you can assure the vehicle will turn a profit from the point of purchase.

*Bus & Motorcoach Academy Continuing Education Credit