Lowcosttravelgroup expands global presence

The Lowcosttravelgroup has launched a series of new global trade and consumer websites.

The new dedicated sites for the US, New Zealand and South Korea will be joined by an Australian presence by the end of this month. This expansion will see the company increase its global footprint to almost 50 countries by 2014, which will mark the company’s 10-year anniversary.

“This is an exciting time in the development of the Lowcosttravelgroup,” said the company’s CEO, Paul Evans. “With the new sites launching this month, we are now live in 40 countries. Additional Asian websites and XML partners will be next, meaning we will be live in 47 countries by the end of the year.

“We will be 10 years old in 2014, with a business unrecognisable from when started. We have developed a truly global business, now available in 13 languages,” he added.

The expansion plans now mean that Lowcostholidays is based in Spain and Lowcostbeds in Switzerland, with group support functions at London Gatwick Airport. Additional sales offices in Switzerland, USA, Brazil, Australia, Thailand and the Middle East now provide the group with global support.

The company also recently appointed three key personnel to drive its international growth, with Adam Alford heading up the Asia team, Liz Hall based in the US and Claudia Baino controlling Brazil and Latin America. The company is also recruiting a significant number of new hotel buyers.

“As we grow to over 16,000 own stock hotels and 200,000 third party hotels in the next 12 months, our focus will be to grow our international B2B and B2C businesses. In addition we will continue to grow our UK trade business through our existing and new trade relationships,” explained Patricia Rossello-Evans, chief commercial officer of the group.

Evans added that he believes that 50% of the group’s business will be outside of the UK by the end of 2013, in markets “where we see higher margins and a significant opportunity for both growth and profits”.