WTM14: lowcostbeds aims to double direct contracts
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lowcostbeds has announced 80% growth in its non-UK business in its latest trading year ending October 2014, with plans to more than double its contracts in the next two years.
More than 65% of its two million passenger sales now come from outside of the UK, with significant growth in Latin America. Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions will be growth focus areas in the future.
However the UK remains its largest single market and represents 35% of overall sales, with UK trade sales up more than 30%.
“We are now one of the top five global bedbanks with plans for further growth,” said Paul Evans, CEO. “We are on the way to removing the seasonality from our business which gives us a much stronger platform as we invest further in securing key global hotel contracts.”
By the turn of the year the bedbank aims to have more than 16,000 direct contracts from 240,000 hotels, with plans to more than double its contracts in 2015/16 predominantly through adding global chains.
“We now have 50 buyers and market managers, located globally across 10 offices and we will continue to invest in more inventory, management and global distribution connectivity, as we build a truly global footprint,” said Evans. “Using channel managers and our extranet tool will accelerate our hotel growth which is vital in the global marketplace where we offer a large range of directly contracted hotels, with up to the minute availability.”
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