About Busmagazin

Busmagazin

BUS MAGAZIN — one of the leading trade journals in the group-travel segment — is the German coach-tourism industry's specialist magazine, published by the Kirschbaum Verlag. "Besondere Reiseerlebnisse, Gemeinsamkeit, einmalige Angebote — die Bus- und Gruppenreise bringt's!" (Special travel experiences, togetherness, unique offers — the bus and group trip delivers!): the journal gives bus operators and group-travel organizers the decision aids for marketing destinations, the background information for travel organization, the tips for advertising and sales, the market-research results, and the market overviews for offer comparison. The readers' technical interests are addressed through vehicle tests and fleet reports. IVW-audited, the journal reaches the industry's decision-makers.

Overview

The magazine serves the group-travel value chain: the bus operators running the coaches, the group-travel organizers packaging the tours, and the tourism partners — the destinations, the hotels, the attractions — receiving the groups. The editorial focus lies clearly in tourism: the marketing of destinations, the travel organization, the advertising and sales, the market research, and the experience staging. The readers' favorites — the recommendations for experience staging and the information for addressing different target groups — show the journal's practical orientation: the bus trip as the experience product.

The technical coverage — the vehicle tests, the fleet reports — serves the operators' investment decisions: the coaches as the capital goods. The drive-transition debate — the industry's defining political issue — deserves its telling. The RDA's Bundestag intervention — demanding the technology-neutral drive transition for coaches — captures the operators' dilemma: the electric coaches for the city routes, the diesel (and increasingly HVO) for the long-distance touring, the hydrogen as the future option. The technology neutrality — the plea against the one-sided battery-electric mandate — reflects the coach industry's reality: the touring coach's 500-kilometer days, the remote destinations without charging infrastructure, the weight and cost penalties. The EES — the EU's Entry/Exit System — adds the operational burden: the biometric border controls' first summer testing what the system demands of bus operators — the longer border stops, the passenger-data handling, the schedule risks. The autonomous horizon — the Norwegian fleet technology, the Munich e-bus test — points to the longer-term transformation: the driver shortage (the industry's chronic personnel crisis) meeting the automation promise. The journal's Fachbeiträge — the specialist articles carrying these debates — give the operators the arguments: the association positions, the political developments, the practical consequences. The media brand — busmagazin.de and bustre.de — extends the print journal into the digital and the events: the BUSTREFF as the industry meeting.

History

The Kirschbaum Verlag — the Bonn specialty publisher (Kirschbaum Verlag GmbH, Siegfriedstraße 28, 53179 Bonn) — has published BUS MAGAZIN as the group-travel segment's leading journal: the media data's "Bereits im [X]. Jahrgang" (already in its [X]th year) documents the long continuity. The publisher's tourism-media portfolio — the BUS MAGAZIN, the BUSTREFF media brand — serves the coach-tourism industry's information and marketing needs: the journal for the editorial content, the Bustreff for the industry gathering.

The journal's history mirrors the coach tourism's evolution: the group travel's golden age, the reunification's new destinations, the low-cost competition, the Fernbus liberalization, the pandemic's collapse and recovery, the experience economy's rise. The IVW audit — the circulation verified by the Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern — gives the advertisers the certified reach. The 2024 tourism media data and the 2026 BUSTREFF media data document the current advertising business.

Coverage and Content

The editorial program follows the group-travel year. The tourism coverage — the destination marketing aids, the travel-organization backgrounds, the advertising and sales tips — serves the operators packaging the tours: the destinations, the hotels, the experiences. The market research — the survey results, the market overviews for offer comparison — gives the data: the trends, the segments, the competitors. The experience-staging recommendations — the readers' favorites — address the product design: the bus trip as the staged experience, the target-group-specific offers.

The portal's current editorial agenda — "Die Fachzeitschrift rund um die Personenbeförderung" (the trade journal for passenger transport) — shows the range. The Fachbeiträge (specialist articles) carry the branch politics: the RDA's Bundestag demand for the technology-neutral drive transition for coaches, the EES border-control stress test's demands on bus operators. The Aktuelles covers the technology: the Norwegian autonomous-bus-fleet technology coming to Germany, the autonomous electric bus tested in Munich's city traffic. The tourism features — the UNESCO World Heritage Haithabu/Danewerk, the Weimar Stadtschloss reopening — serve the group-travel organizers' destination planning. The vehicle tests and premieres — the Solaris Urbino 18 electric, inside and out an eye-catcher — treat the fleet investments. The fleet-and-technology features — the Daimler Buses eCitaro family's German Sustainability Award 2026 — document the electric transformation. The management features — the bdo panel "Public mobility in Germany — where is the journey going?" with the association president and Bundestag members — give the industry's political voice. The Branchen-Index — the average bus price per day including driver, continuously and anonymously determined from real offer data (source: Bustreff.de) — provides the market's price transparency: the industry's own index. The management coverage — the specialist information for running bus companies and group-travel organizers — addresses the business: the law, the finance, the personnel. The BUSTREFF — the media brand's industry meeting — gathers the branch: the operators, the destinations, the suppliers.

Organization and Ownership

BUS MAGAZIN is published by the Kirschbaum Verlag GmbH, Siegfriedstraße 28, 53179 Bonn, telephone (02 28) 9 54 53-0, email anzeigen@kirschbaum.de. The advertising sales — the media consulting for technology and services (Michael Kiefer, Simon Fahr, Peter Schmitz, Ralf Puzalowski) and for tourism customers (Ralf Puzalowski, Kerstin Ficht) — covers the regions: Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, the north and east, Bavaria and Austria. The Kirschbaum Verlag — the Bonn specialty house — deserves its institutional telling. The publisher's bus-and-group-tourism portfolio — BUS MAGAZIN, the BUSTREFF media brand, the bustre.de portal — concentrates the coach industry's media: the journal for the editorial journalism, the Bustreff for the industry gathering and the market data, the portals for the digital flow. The advertising organization — the media consulting split between technology-and-services and tourism customers, the regional consultants from Hesse to Bavaria and Austria — mirrors the industry's two-sided market: the manufacturers and suppliers on one side, the destinations and tourism partners on the other. The IVW audit — the certified circulation — underwrites the B2B advertising business: the certified reach for the marketing euros. The media data — the 2024 tourism edition, the 2026 BUSTREFF edition — document the offers: the print pages, the digital formats, the event partnerships.

The business model follows the B2B trade-press pattern: the subscriptions, the advertising (the tourism destinations, the bus manufacturers, the suppliers), and the events. Detailed circulation and revenue figures beyond the IVW audit are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The media brand's digital home is busmagazin.de — "Busmagazin – Die Fachzeitschrift rund um die Personenbeförderung" — the portal carrying the specialist articles, the current news, the vehicle tests and premieres, the tourism, fleet-and-technology, and management features, the bus news, and the Branchen-Index. The groupedia Reiseziele — the partner platform for finding group destinations, planning group trips with a single inquiry — extends the brand into the travel-planning service: the destinations meeting the operators. The bustre.de portal — the BUSTREFF brand — carries the industry meeting and the index's data source. The media data PDFs — the 2024 tourism media data, the 2026 BUSTREFF media data — document the advertising offers: the technology-and-services and tourism-customer media consulting across the German regions plus Austria. The media data PDFs — the 2024 tourism media data, the 2026 BUSTREFF media data — document the advertising offers. The digital strategy follows the B2B logic: the print journal for the deep group-travel coverage — the destination marketing, the travel organization, the vehicle tests — the portals for the current news and the industry meeting.

As the group-travel segment's leading journal — IVW-audited, published by the Kirschbaum Verlag — BUS MAGAZIN remains the coach-tourism industry's companion: the special travel experiences, the togetherness, the unique offers — in print, digital, and at the Bustreff.