Paul Evans (businessman)

Paul Evans is the founder and chief executive of the Lowcosttravel Group and lowcostholidays, one of Europe's leading online travel agents and bed banks, which he started in 2004.^[1] The company now has revenues of US$800 million plus.

lowcostbeds.com is a global hotel bed bank in 47 countries/13 languages worldwide, whilst its sister company lowcostholidays.com is a dynamic packaging website that operates throughout Europe, USA, and Australia from a base in Majorca Spain.

Paul is also Non Exec Chairman of Madame Vacances the French/Spanish hotels operator.

Prior to this he was Group Chief Operating Officer of Watermark plc. which provides a diverse range of products and catering services to the airline and travel industry where he was responsible for the profitability of worldwide operations.

Paul has an extensive background in mainstream travel, starting in Club 18-30 as a Resort Manager, working as a Product Development Executive/Manager at Saga Holidays. and then spending 13 years within the Airtours/MyTravel Group.^[2]

He joined Airtours Holidays as a Contracts Manager, and rose to Group Purchasing Director.

He was then appointed as Deputy Managing Director of Going Places Travel (part of MyTravel), where he managed and implemented the chain's commercial and marketing strategy across 750 retail shops, finally leaving the group in 1999.

After leaving My Travel he joined the First Choice Holiday Division as Managing Director^[3] where, amongst his other activities, he integrated the multi-brand/business units Unijet, Sunquest, Eclipse, Falcon/Jet and Ski business leaving after the 9/11 tragedy.

Following this, he became a Non-Executive Director of Holiday Hotels before this business was acquired by lastminute.com.

After founding the Lowcosttravelgroup in 2004 - which was awarded Rising Brand of the Year at the Travolution Awards 2012^[4] - the group later announced an agreement to combine its accommodation with easyJetís flight flares to develop easyJet Holidays.^[5]

Paul was also the owner of his own travel technology firm, Intuitive, until December 2012.^[6]

Following the decision to move the company to Spain in October 2013,^[7] Paul responded to criticism saying: "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.^[8]

Recognised as a 'holiday guru'^[9] throughout the industry, Paul has spoken on the panel at prestigious travel events, including WTM,^[10][11] as well as appeared on numerous BBC Radio 2 shows.^[12][13]

Paul has directed a lot of time and effort into marketing the Low Cost Travel Group; touring London on a bed in 2009,^[14] appearing on TV for the first time in 2011,^[15] and securing regular TV spots throughout late 2013 and much of 2014 with the don't go high cost campaign.^[16]

References

External links

• Low Cost Travel Group Ltd website