One of the most famous faces of the Irish travel trade – and Irish life – has passed away. Budget Travel founder Gillian Bowler was today praised by former colleagues in the travel industry with one insisting: “She’ll certainly be remembered as an icon.”
Ms Bowler (64), who founded Budget Travel, hailed from the Isle of Wight. She started off in the travel industry at the age of 16, working with British company Greek Island Holidays.
Moving to Ireland in 1973, she founded Budget two years later, selling holidays to the Greek Islands and was joined in the business by her husband, Harry Sydner, in 1982.
“I must say she was inspirational – her whole way of promoting the brand to the Irish public was very innovative. She was sort of a visionary for the travel business from the point of view of coming up with new ideas,” said Clem Walshe, who joined the company in 1995 as operations manager, later becoming its head of marketing until its closure.
“Whether it was midnight sales or low deposits, family plans for 2+2, she was the one who opened up the USA and made it affordable for Irish families after managing to do deals with Aeroflot who were flying from Moscow to Miami via Shannon. Back in the day Irish families couldn’t afford to go to America,” said Mr Walshe, managing director of localmarketing.ie
Clickandgo boss Paul Hackett, a former colleague of Gillian’s at Budget, remembers “how pioneering and innovative it was at the time. My first project with Gill and Harry at Budget was setting up the Aeroflot charters to Miami and developing out all the Florida/Caribbean programmes. Budget was great at doing innovative things.”
He added; “My other memories would be the great marketing campaigns we would have put up with all of the great bus shelters … We didn’t do PR for the fun of it.”
And he added: “What would be important is to remember Harry’s contribution. It was very much the two of them. While Gill was the front and the face of the business, Harry was hugely important and a massive influence on the business, so it’s very tough on him today.”
Mr Hackett said Budget has a huge place in Irish travel history, saying; “There was really only two people at the time; it was Joe Walsh and Budget Travel in terms of the personalities and she was a huge personality with the sunglasses and then had all of that government recognition.”
Irish Travel Agents Association chief executive Pat Dawson paid tribute to Gillian’s stature in the industry: “They were the biggest and did fly over 100,000 charter seats a year going back in the ’80s and ’90s.”
Pat Dawson remembers her as a pioneer, in terms of destinations and marketing coups involving the public queuing outside Budget’s offices for bargains. “She was probably the first to venture into Greece. Her first charter I remember as I was working in Joe Walsh Tours she bought 30 seats off Joe Walsh to Athens and that was her first venture into tour operating in Ireland all those years ago.”
Ms Bowler was a non-executive director of Irish Life & Permanent and a former chairperson of Failte Ireland. She also served as vice-president of the Institute of Directors and a board member of the Irish Cancer Society.
