About bus blickpunkt

Bus Blickpunkt

Bus Blickpunkt — the trade journal for bus operators and group tour organizers — is the German-language coach industry's specialist publication, published monthly from Bensheim by the Bus Blickpunkt Verlag Michaela Rothe. Since September 1985, the journal has informed bus and group-travel entrepreneurs: the vehicles, the technology, the tourism business, and the branch politics. In its 40th year (2025), Bus Blickpunkt prints 8,250 copies distributed to bus companies and group tour operators in Germany and the neighboring German-speaking countries — plus the associations (RDA, BDO, VDV, VPR, GBK, WBO, DRV), the tour operators, the bus manufacturers, the tourist offices, the hotels, the shipping companies, and the musical theaters: in short, all partners of the coach-tourism industry.

Overview

The journal serves the coach-tourism value chain: the bus operators running the coaches, the group-travel organizers packaging the tours, and the partners — the destinations, the hotels, the attractions — receiving the groups. The editorial program covers the industry's full agenda: the bus technology (the new models, the electric and hydrogen buses, the autonomous driving), the tourism business (the destinations, the travel trends, the group products), and the branch politics (the regulations, the associations, the lobbying). The monthly rhythm — the printed issue arriving by post — structures the industry's information flow.

The distribution — 8,250 printed copies — reaches the decision-makers: the bus entrepreneurs, the tour operators, the association officials, the manufacturers, and the tourism partners. The Edition specials — the journal's thematic booklets, deposited at the Hessian state library — deserve their detailed telling. The irregular series carries the destination marketing: the 41st year's 03/2026 Bavaria edition, the 40th year's Baden-Württemberg (03/2025) and museums (11/2024) editions, the 39th year's Christmas markets (07-08/2024) and museums (11/2023), the 38th year's automobile history (09/2023) and forest-and-experience (08/2023), the 37th year's Switzerland (11 and 09/2022), hotels (06/2022), Bavaria (05/2022), forest-and-hiking (03/2022), the 2021 pleasure-travels, UNESCO, Passion plays, Christmas markets, Bavaria, second cities, and forest editions. Each special presents a destination or theme to the coach operators: the regions, the hotels, the museums, the Christmas markets — the group-travel products the bus entrepreneurs package. The library deposit — "Busblickpunkt Edition: Informationen für Busunternehmer," published in Bensheim by Michaela Rothe since 06/2019, irregular frequency, ZDB 3094305-X — documents the series' bibliographic existence. The Blickpunkt Mobility brand and the busnetz.de online portal carry the journalism into the digital daily.

History

The 1985 founding era — the coach tourism's golden age — deserves its telling. The post-war prosperity had made the group tour the Germans' travel form: the senior citizens' Rhine tours, the club outings, the city breaks — the coaches rolling through Europe with the German travel groups. The bus entrepreneurs — often family businesses, the coach as the family's capital — needed their own medium: the vehicle news (the new Setras, the new Neoplans), the destination reports, the branch politics. Michaela Rothe's Bensheim publishing house — the Darmstädter Straße 121 address in the Hessian Bergstraße district — built the journal into the industry's institution: the monthly Fachzeitung arriving by post, the media data, the advertising business with the manufacturers and destinations. The 1999 busnetz.de launch — the online portal for the daily branch news, the QR code for mobile devices — extended the print brand early into the digital. The publisher's team — the owner Michaela Rothe, the new editor-in-chief Thorsten Wagner, the editorial staff — carries the journal into its fifth decade: the coach industry's paper, still printed, still monthly. The monthly Fachzeitung — the trade newspaper — gave the bus entrepreneurs their own medium: the vehicle news, the tourism reports, the branch politics. Through the decades — the reunification's new markets, the low-cost airlines' competition, the 2000s coach-liberalization (Fernbus), the pandemic's tourism collapse, the electric-bus transformation — Bus Blickpunkt documented the industry's evolution.

The 40th year — 2025 — marked the continuity: the journal still printed, still monthly, still the industry's paper. The new editor-in-chief — Thorsten Wagner, no unknown face in the bus branch — took over the editorial leadership, with the FAZ-inspired ambition ("Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf" — behind it always a clever head). The Busworld 2025 special — the four-page supplement on the bus industry's leading fair, produced with omnibus.news for the October issue — showed the journal's fair presence. The deposit copies — the Hessian state library's epflicht archive with the ZDB record 3094305-X — document the bibliographic continuity.

Coverage and Content

The editorial program follows the coach industry's agenda. The vehicle coverage treats the bus technology: the new models (the Neoplan Cityliner's 50th anniversary, the Solaris hydrogen bus, the Karsan autonomous e-Jest), the electric-bus boom, the manufacturers' strategies (Daimler Buses, MAN). The tourism coverage — the destinations, the travel trends, the group products — serves the tour organizers: the Edition specials on Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, the museums, the Christmas markets, the hotels. The association landscape — the journal's institutional environment — deserves its telling. The RDA (Internationaler Bustouristik Verband) — the coach tourism's international association — the BDO (Bundesverband Deutscher Omnibusunternehmen) — the German bus operators' federal association — the VDV (Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen) — the transport companies' association — the VPR (Verband der Paketer, the group-travel packagers), the GBK (Gütegemeinschaft Buskomfort), the WBO (the Baden-Württemberg bus operators), the DRV (Deutscher Reiseverband) — these are the industry's organized voices, and Bus Blickpunkt's distribution reaches them all: the officials, the members, the events. The journal's branch-politics coverage — the passenger-transport regulations, the driving-time rules, the toll regimes, the environmental zones, the coach-liberalization's aftermath — serves the entrepreneurs navigating the regulatory thicket. The 2013 long-distance bus liberalization — the Fernbus revolution, FlixBus's rise — reshaped the market the journal covers: the scheduled-service coaches competing with the railways, the tourism coaches defending their group-travel niche. The electric transformation — the e-bus boom, the hydrogen pilots, the charging infrastructure — is the current technological upheaval: the operators' fleets turning electric, the manufacturers' new models, the subsidies and the mandates.

The fair coverage — the Busworld (the bus industry's world fair), the IAA Transportation — documents the product premieres and the industry gatherings. The curiosities — the legendary Belgian fries at Busworld, the Mister and Miss Busworld — give the journal its human touch. The digital busnetz.de — the online portal established 1999 — carries the daily news: the current topics from the branch, the vehicle premieres, the industry moves.

Organization and Ownership

Bus Blickpunkt is published by the Bus Blickpunkt Verlag Michaela Rothe, Darmstädter Straße 121, 64625 Bensheim, telephone +49 (0)6251 9349-0, email info@busblickpunkt.de. The owner is Michaela Rothe. The editor-in-chief is Thorsten Wagner (newly appointed, per industry reports). The publisher's portfolio — Bus Blickpunkt (the monthly trade journal), Bus Blickpunkt Edition (the thematic specials), Blickpunkt Mobility, and the busnetz.de online portal — makes the Bensheim house the coach industry's media company. The media data — the 2022 title portrait — documents the advertising business.

The business model follows the B2B trade-press pattern: the subscriptions, the advertising (the bus manufacturers, the tourism destinations, the suppliers), and the special editions. Detailed circulation and revenue figures beyond the 8,250 printed copies are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home is busnetz.de — the online portal established 1999, carrying the daily branch news for mobile devices via QR code: the current topics from the bus industry. The busblickpunkt.de site carries the journal's presence. The media data PDFs document the advertising offers. The digital flipbooks — like the Busworld 2025 special — extend the print specials online.

The digital strategy follows the B2B logic: the print monthly for the deep industry coverage — the vehicles, the tourism, the branch politics — the busnetz.de portal for the daily news. As the coach industry's trade journal — since September 1985, in its 40th year — Bus Blickpunkt remains the bus entrepreneurs' companion: the information for bus and group-travel operators — monthly in print, daily on busnetz.de.