Lowcost Travel Group has launched trade and consumer websites in the US, New Zealand and South Korea, with Australia set to go live by the end of this month.
The company expects to be established in 47 countries and for 50% of its business to come from outside the UK by the end of 2013.
Lowcostholidays is now based in Palma, bed bank Lowcostbeds is in Switzerland and group support functions are in Gatwick. Additional sales offices are now in place in Switzerland, US, Brazil, Australia, Thailand and the Middle East.
Chief executive Paul Evans (pictured) said: “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 we started. We have developed a truly global business, now available in 13 languages.”
Lowcost has hired Adam Alford, (Asia); Liz Hall (US) and Claudia Baino (Brazil and Latin America) to help drive the expansion. The company is also recruiting a number of hotel buyers to increase numbers of hotels relevant to local markets.
Patricia Rossello-Evans, chief commercial officer, said: “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.
“I anticipate that over 50% of our business will be outside of the UK by the end of 2013, where we see higher margins and a significant opportunity for both growth and profits.”
The group is also planning a number of special events and promotions next year to celebrate its 10th anniversary, starting at next month’s World Travel Market.