At World Travel Market on Monday 4th November, lowcostbeds the Swiss-based bedbank, part of the lowcosttravelgroup, announced the official launch of its 10th anniversary celebrations. 
Paul Evans, Founder and Chief Executive, said: “It has been an amazing journey so far and we are entering the next, exciting phase of our growth and development, as we become a truly global business. We are on track to becoming a $1 billion global business.”
Lowcostbeds’ recent expansion into other international markets means that the company now works with over 36,000 travel agent partners in over 40 countries.
The company has also announced a new internal ‘Hotel Rating’ system, which will run for the next 12 months, with recognition given to the best hotel partners at an awards event, to be held later next year, in order to commemorate the company’s 10th year anniversary.
“We have improved our range and quality of hotels significantly in the last few years and felt that our 10-year anniversary was an excellent opportunity to launch this initiative”, said Patricia Rossello- Evans, group Chief Commerical Officer. “The hotels we have spoken to so far have been very positive about our rating system. Hotels will be ranked on a number of service level scores, from facilities, through to the hotel staffs care of our customers.”
The company will be launching a new style trade advertising and marketing campaign this week, which will be continued into the New Year.
“Over the last number of years we have firmly established ourselves in the Irish trade for being an excellent, leading supplier of beach hotels,” said Clem Walshe, Irish Managing Director of lowcostbeds. ”We have substantially increased our cities, long-haul and beach hotels, adding up to a total of 200,000 properties available from us at any one time. We now average two and half million searches per day.”
Agents will be incentivised throughout 2014, with various promotions, parties and tactical offers, all based around a 10-year anniversary theme.
Lowcostholidays Moves to Spain
Meanwhile, Lowcostholidays, part of the Lowcostravelgroup, has announced the first stage in its plans to centralise its pan-European business into its subsidiary, Lowcostholidays Spain, SL. It has moved its UK business and forward bookings into its Spanish subsidiary and all future bookings will be made through this Spanish entity.
Paul Evans, said: “As we globalise the Group, we are centralising our lowcostholidays business and simplifying our structure. We now employ over 100 staff in our Palma centre, and having a single trading entity through which all of our holidays are sold means we can achieve significant efficiencies and cost savings. It means our administration, operations and regulatory functions can be centralised.
“It also means all of our pan-European businesses will be regulated under Spanish law and effectively under the overarching regulation across Europe of the EU Package Travel Directive. Customers will benefit from full package travel protection under Spanish law, consistent with the EU package travel regulations.’’
