meet

meet

the

MD

This week: Richard Coundley, Holiday-Rentals.com

Age: 47

I think the fact I didn’t have any travel experience when I set up Holiday-Rentals.com was an advantage. My experience has taught me to understand technology, think globally and rewrite the rules.

Without that I would not have recognised how profoundly the Internet would change the travel industry. My co-founder, Marcelle Speller, has over 20 years of international travel marketing experience and together we challenged the preconceptions.

I have an engineering degree from Bristol, which taught me to understand the importance of technology. I am passionate about using technology to open up new business opportunities. I have personally specified and tested all our technology systems. Holiday-Rentals.com has just launched a unique new system, codenamed TRIPS, that drives the entire site from an on-line database. It allows people to find exactly what they are looking for, quickly and easily.

I am currently working with some major tour operators developing ways to transfer details of their properties from their databases onto our Web site. TRIPS also allows us to provide major travel sites and portals with unique customised global content.

My first job was with a British firm of consulting engineers, who undertook projects around the world. I have worked in the US, Abu Dhabi, Kenya, China, Chile and Argentina, and I spent a term of my Masters of Business Administration qualification in Barcelona.

The Web is changing the travel industry from operating solely in terms of single origin and destination markets. The Holiday-Rentals.com site has properties in over 40 countries and people make bookings from over 90 countries, so we have a truly global brand.

I have always been accused of challenging current wisdom. The most valuable business experience was at National Power where I was one of a four-man team that reviewed the whole overhead operation. We cut out £150 million in unnecessary cost in a year to align the business in the new privatised marketplace.

I then decided to break free from the constraints of large firms and start my own business.

In 1995, we bought a holiday home in Ireland. Advertising it in traditional media was expensive and did not generate any bookings. I was a very early adopter to the Internet and immediately saw how it could revolutionise the renting of holiday property.

Anyone, anywhere, could rent our apartment in Kinsale and through the Internet, we could give them more detail than a small classified ad.

In February 1996 we set up Holiday-Rentals.com. People had not even heard of the Internet. Most UK travel firms told us that CD-ROMs would always be the best way to distribute information. Most of my friends thought I was crazy. I realised the Internet would mean fundamental changes in the travel business – that it would encourage independent travel.

People want to be in control of their holiday bookings and the Internet gives them the information and the power to do that.

We focused on one large but very fragmented segment – self-catering. But we did not specialise in one market, or one type of customer. Our vision was, and still is, no matter where a person lives, where they want to go, what type of holiday they want – we have the ideal accommodation for them.

Because we launched the business in the early days, we have been able to fund it ourselves. Without spending millions on marketing, we have built a site that has over 6,000 visits daily.

Would I start Holiday-Rentals.com now? No. The window of opportunity has gone, there are just too many inferior travel sites. Many are difficult to navigate and give less information than a brochure. There is no way we could build a business like Holiday-Rentals now without a large amount of resources.

And the apartment in Kinsale is let about 40 weeks a year – the trouble is we never get thereourselves!

CURRICULUM VITAE

1972: honours degree in engineering from Bristol University.

1976: joined Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick, consultant engineers.

1985: MBA London Business School.

1987: joined Balfour Beatty as project finance manager.

1990: joined National Power as project controller.

1991: overhead review for National Power.

1993: project and business development consultant.

1996: founded Holiday-Rentals.com.

MY TOP TIPS

&#8226 If you have a vision, persevere even if people say you are crazy.

&#8226 Move early and be brave. If others think your idea is obvious, it’s probably too late.

&#8226 Embrace change, don’t fight it.

&#8226 Use technology to break out of the current mould.

&#8226 The customer is important but not necessarily always right.

&#8226 People who say “trust me” are probably not to be trusted.

&#8226 Hire the right people and motivate them to grow with you.