ABOUT US

Invergordon Bus Tours is owned and managed by Duncan Maclean, with huge backing from his long-term partner, the one and only, Anna P. Bedford, ‘without whom’, he says, ‘none of this would happen’.

Duncan first visited Invergordon, now Scotland’s most visited mainland cruise port of call back in 2006, with only his own taxi, looking to take some cruise guests out touring his beloved Scottish Highlands.

He hasn’t looked back since.

In 2006 the port handled around 40,000 cruise guests from around the world.

For the 2007 season, the port’s cruise management team, pleased with the service that Duncan was already offering, asked him to provide the port’s official taxi service. He duly obliged. He diligently delivered over the next 3 seasons, turning 12 unruly operatives on a big ship day before he began, to up to 55 smart customer focused operators out on tour by the close of the 2010 season.

Due to growing demand, and significant changes at the port, the taxi service evolved into Invergordon Bus Tours for the 2011 season, marking early steps for Invergordon’s first independent coach tour provider.

Back in 2006 at least 95% of our 40,000 visitors that ventured outside Invergordon joined their cruise line’s own tours. Just about everyone else that wished to ‘do their own thing’ toured with Duncan’s taxi service.

Fast forward to our much anticipated 2026 cruise season. The port is already expecting up to 215,000 cruise guests, and these days more than 50% of those visitors will take a tour with one of numerous independent operators now offering service at Invergordon, a number of those actually ‘cut their teeth’ at Invergordon working for Duncan.

Driver/guiding one of those early taxi tours, Duncan once told some guests that his long-term ambition was to provide the best shore excursion/tour experience at any cruise port anywhere in the world.

‘Well’, he says, ‘Who knows where we are with that? But Invergordon Bus Tours already takes more independent minded cruise guests out on tour from the port of Invergordon than any other independent tour operator’.

At Invergordon Bus Tours we recruit only the most guest focused coach tour guides on to our team that have knowledge of and a passion for the Scottish Highlands, that are sufficiently confident, articulate, and willing to share all of this with our valued cruise guest coach groups.

Our longest serving guide, Glen, joined us late in 2022, which was our crucial post Covid-19 pandemic recovery season. He actually had no previous coach tour guiding experience, but on first talking to him Duncan picked up that he had excellent communication and customer service skills, along with a good knowledge of the area covered by our tours.

With 3 full seasons now under his belt, he has developed into the most ‘in demand’ coach tour guide that we have had in our team to date.

Our second guide, Richard, will begin his second full season for us in 2026. He’s an experienced courier guide and driver guide with numerous fine guest reviews behind him. We have to offer him tour dates early, as he has considerable demand on his services. He also does a good job for us, and has developed into a solid member of our team.

Our third and fourth full time tour guides for our 2026 season, Donald and Tom, although new to us, bring us good experience and promise for the future.