On the Road With Cary and Gina Martin & Little Rock Tours
Cary and Gina Martin with daughters, Presley, 13, and Brooke, 11, on one of their Little Rock Tours buses.
“Our daughters don’t ever remember a time in their lives without buses around,” muses Gina Martin. For over a decade she and her husband Cary Martin have owned and operated Little Rock Tours. Central Arkansans who’ve lived in the area a little longer than that remember the dynamic duo as popular members of the KATV Channel 7 news team. Cary was a nightly news anchor while Gina greeted early risers Daybreak and Good Morning Arkansas.
Gina and Cary met when they were both working at Ohio television stations. Gina shares, “We met in July of 1998 at media party Cary hosted at his house in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was an anchor and reporter in Columbus, Ohio and he was an anchor and reporter in Cincinnati, about 120 miles away. He invited my co-worker to his party. They had worked together in Tucson, Arizona, and I just went along for the ride. Honestly, I didn’t even want to go to the party. But I let my co-worker talk me into it, and it ended up changing my life. Ironically, after we started dating we realized we had both attended one of the same social function’s two years earlier in Columbus, Ohio. But we never actually talked that night. Little did I know that I would run into him again two years later, and end up marrying him.”
Their engagement night in October 1999, Cary found out he was heading to Little Rock to anchor at KATV. Gina’s station allowed her out of her contract so she could head south with Cary. They were married June 10, 2000. They now have two daughters, Presley, 13, and Brooke, 11.
The Martins had discussed starting their own business because they both have a very strong work ethic. When their daughter Presley was four months old, they took a tour of Minneapolis, Minnesota while there to attend a family reunion. “The highlight (of the tour) was where Mary Tyler Moore threw her hat in the TV show. And the tour was sold out! I turned to Cary and told him Little Rock should have a sightseeing tour because it has twice the history in half the geographical distance. So that became our business idea. We took a leap of faith and bought a mini-bus just a few weeks later,” Gina explains.
Cary says of the years since then, “Little Rock Tours has evolved from a local sightseeing tour company, into a full service tour and motorcoach transportation company that transports groups and plans tours and cruises all across the country. One side of our company handles just bus charters and transportation only. The other side plans tours and one-of-a-kind experiences for groups of all kinds.”
As their children grew, so did their business. They currently have 17 buses that include one mini-bus, two shuttle vans, and 14 large 56 passenger motorcoaches. Gina quips, “Having buses and having children are very similar. Both consume your time, cost a lot of money, and keep you awake at night!”
“Presley and Brooke have really enjoyed the traveling. We often travel to destinations to plan tours before we offer them to the public, and many times we have taken our kids with us. They have already toured 37 states, including Alaska. When they go to school and learn about the Liberty Bell or Mount Rushmore, they have been there. So that’s been a real advantage to their education,” says Gina. A close-knit family, Cary and Gina both say their favorite thing about being parents is the unconditional love from their children.
Little Rock Tours has won the Vision Award from the United Motorcoach Association as most outstanding tour operator in the country and the Motorcoach Operator of the Year from South Central Motorcoach Association. The Martins credit their “great employees” and customers with their success.
The Martins describe running a transportation and tour company as more of a “marathon” than a “vacation” though. “You would think our favorite experiences would have to do with places we’ve been. But it’s about people, not places,” Gina says.
Helping after Hurricane Katrina
The weather plays a factor in just about every aspect of day to day life. In the travel industry Mother Nature can certainly be a friend or a foe. When Hurricane Katrina struck the southern U.S. coast in late August of 2005, the Martins’ sight-seeing business transformed into a saving grace for many.
Gina solemnly recalls Little Rock Tours’ involvement with the Hurricane Katrina evacuations:
“When we learned the levee was breached and watched reports of children stranded without food and water, we wanted to help. We sent our buses down to New Orleans to rescue people who were trapped. We called our media friends and organized the fastest “stuff the bus” campaign you could imagine. We stuffed them full of disaster-relief items, thanks to a countless number of charitable Arkansans who responded. The community’s desire to help was overwhelming.
After our own mini-relief effort was underway, we got a phone call from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), asking us for buses to do the very same thing we were already doing voluntarily. So what started out as our own voluntary emergency relief effort, turned into a for-hire job for FEMA. Only FEMA needed bus seats, not supplies. Still, rather than send down empty buses, we sent seven buses, completely loaded with food, water, and supplies, on their way to the Superdome. Our buses were among the first on the scene.
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to help people and deliver the essential items they needed. But when we arrived, the area had not yet been officially “secured” by police or the National Guard. When our drivers told the commander in charge we had seven busloads full of food, water, and supplies, he panicked. The drivers were forbidden to unload the supplies. He warned them there would be riots from people fighting for our food and water supplies and people could die. Our drivers pleaded with the commander, assuring him we had enough supplies and medicine to make a significant impact. But the guard would not allow it.
Starving and weary passengers struggled with every ounce of energy they could muster to climb aboard our buses, not knowing that tucked away secretly underneath the cargo bays below, were life-saving supplies. Before the buses pulled away, our drivers were instructed to unload the supplies in another city, but not at the Superdome.
Later when it was reported that people were dying around the Convention Center, we were extremely upset knowing our relief efforts would have made a difference had the supplies just been permitted where they needed the most, not in a staging area far from New Orleans.
Our drivers and company (later) made it into the Bus Drivers Hall of Fame in Pennsylvania, for being among the first on the scene in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
1. The journey is part of the experience! The secret to fun family travel is to make the most out of every experience. Even the bad ones can be funny if you can laugh about them. Happiness is not in your circumstances, but in yourselves when you go on an adventure.
2. We always say that travel is an inexact science. You never know what you are going to get so you must, must, must remain flexible and not have a rigid itinerary. You could run into weather problems, traffic tie-ups, missed flights, or mechanical issues. Life is too short to make a misery out of little things that are bound to occur. Just go with it.
3. Let the kids be in charge of some of the decisions, including where to go next, what to do or where to eat.
4. Always keep your cell phone and charger handy. You will need both.
5. The phone charger is the most left behind item in the hotel room because it is often in the wall and not on the floor or countertop. Always remember to check the outlets when you check-out.
6. The Inrix traffic app will help you avoid construction and traffic delays if traveling by ground. It is a traveling must!
7. Download a weather radar app to your smart phone to know what to expect weather-wise. You will also figure out what to wear for that day’s scheduled events.
8. Be realistic about what you can see and do with kids. Don’t cram too much into your itinerary. The less you feel you have to see, the more stress-free it will be for everyone.