ANALYSIS: The life and turbulent times of Paul Evans

As the former managing director of First Choice Holidays and later the driving force behind Lowcostbeds and the broader Lowcost Travelgroup, Evans navigated the shift from traditional charter operations to dynamic packaging and online distribution with a determination rooted in product knowledge and technological adaptation. His career trajectory reveals both the opportunities created by low cost carriers and the risks inherent in rapid expansion across European markets including Ireland.

Evans entered the sector at a time when the Irish charter market stood at around 80,0000 passengers annually. In his earlier role at First Choice he observed the gradual erosion of that figure as no frills airlines expanded their presence at regional airports. Capacity that once served the Canaries moved towards mid haul and eastern destinations only to return in spring 2011 when operators found themselves with surplus aircraft. Evans later confirmed that the Canaries had endured three or four difficult years before a stronger summer performance in German and Scandinavian markets.

Pricing became somewhat firmer that winter though from a low base. Long haul and city breaks showed early growth for summer 2012 and all inclusive arrangements accounted for 42 per cent of product sold across the group.

Laptop contracting

The foundation of Lowcostbeds lay in a laptop based contracting system that prioritised speed to market. Evans revealed that the average booking window had shortened from twelve months to three months and that constant price updates were essential. From the moment a contract was signed a property might carry twenty five different rates as availability fluctuated.

The system generated 100 million dynamic packages every morning. The challenge lay in presenting those options simply to customers and agents so that the holiday could be broken down in millions of ways without overwhelming the user. Evans insisted that the customer remained in control.

The company displayed roughly one million pre selected packages on its site while inviting travellers to mix flights hotels and transfers according to preference. Deposit and balance payments could be adjusted and tickets issued immediately rather than arriving in a wallet two weeks before departure.

Emerald in the crown

Ireland became the strongest performing market for the trade product after the Irish office opened on 18 December 2010. Within less than twelve months one hundred properties specific to the Irish market had been contracted each carrying a loyal following. Evans described Ireland as the shining star among the newer European countries in which the group operated. More than fifty per cent of Irish business came through agents and the company aimed to keep that proportion. Affiliate membership of the ITAA followed. It was profitable when the group collapsed.

Agents received XML feeds for beds and for Resort Hoppa the transfer operation founded by Evans’s wife before the couple met. Many websites stopped at a call this number message whereas Lowcostbeds could power the booking through to completion. White label sites were planned for the new year allowing agents to build their own platforms under commercial terms that enabled them to recover costs.

Evans repeatedly stressed that agents under sold extras. As beds and flights became commoditised the margin on transfers often exceeded that on the hotel itself. Eighty per cent of passengers arriving at airports still required ground transport and the opportunity to pre sell transfers remained largely unrealised.

Bed banks and rooms

The group drew stock from 52 bed banks offering 400,000 hotel rooms across eight languages and ten countries. Margin came from own product while range came from third party banks. Seventy per cent of volume concentrated on 500 guaranteed properties that Evans termed the castles.

By placing money down the company secured availability and cost advantages unavailable to competitors who merely distributed product.

The technological distinction proved decisive. Most reservation systems began as booking engines and later bolted on product loading and accounting interfaces. Intuitive the platform powering Lowcostbeds and twenty two other businesses including Easyjet Lastminute and Getabed started as a contracting system.

Product entered first whether hotel flight transfer insurance or car parking and the reservation layer followed. Filters allowed an agent to select a four star hotel in Alcudia near the beach with babysitting and a ground floor room within a budget of €1200 and present six options in sixty seconds.

Legacy systems such as the old FSA Viewdata had become slow and expensive. Google data indicated that sites failing to load within four seconds lost forty per cent of potential business. In a recession consumers consulted up to twenty websites before booking so speed functionality reputation and ease of use determined success.

Small margins, big problems

Quality control remained ruthless because margins could not absorb problems. Descriptions stayed factual rather than exaggerated. Reviews stayed on the review centre and reputation management answered the simple question of whether the holiday had been satisfactory. Evans confirmed that the recession had favoured the model. Self catering important in Ireland grew while bed and breakfast and half board declined.

All inclusive rose because travellers sought fixed costs. Forty eight per cent of Easyjet holiday passengers chose four or five star properties demonstrating that the no frills queue contained a more structured demographic than the traditional charter line. Tour operators needed to abandon sangria welcome meetings twelve stop coach transfers and paper tickets in favour of instant electronic documents and flexible durations beyond the standard seven or fourteen nights.

The group comprised six elements trade product Lowcostbeds direct product Lowcostholidays transfers via Resort Hoppa Ideal Cruising and technology services that powered external brands. Homeworkers with travel experience were sought to handle telephone enquiries because the power of human contact remained underestimated even in an online era.

Agents could take the software alone or combine it with other bed banks. The model did not seek to replace agents but to equip them with range speed and add on opportunities so that they retained regional clientele and personal relationships that pure online players could never replicate.

Throughout his career Evans maintained that the deal inside each hotel mattered more than the size of the operator. Filling seventy rooms in a one hundred room property made the buyer the most important client regardless of overall company scale. He contracted specifically for Ireland from the outset using knowledge gained from First Choice, Falcon and Budget.

Sense of urgency

Speed remained the guiding principle. Emails often closed with a request for action the same day. The motto hurry up encapsulated a sense of urgency without sacrificing standards. In an industry where anything older than ten years risked obsolescence the capacity to update prices instantly via extranet and to present one hundred million fresh packages each morning separated Lowcostbeds from slower competitors.

Evans’s analytical view of the charter market projected its eventual disappearance. Within a few years the word charter itself might cease to exist as hybrid no frills models dominated.

Aircraft would be positioned where holiday demand required them programmes would launch earlier and agents would package dynamically through seamless online systems. Regional airports would continue to free capacity for remaining charter operators while low cost carriers concentrated on point to point saturation and advantageous airport deals. Torremolinos alone offered 100,000 yet global range still demanded selectivity focused on quality scores availability and price.

“The greatest difference between ours and other bedbanks is speed.,” he told Travel Extra in an interview in 2011. “Agents are all looking for ways to cut costs. A faster system saves money. And we maintain a telephone contact. In the rush to faster and faster systems people under estimate the power of the telephone.“

“We can also get instant hotel pricing comparisons on extranet, if the prices are too high we get on to them and they change it instantly. Google tell me if you are not loading in 4 seconds you are losing 40p of your business. When booking a holiday people look at 12 websites. This rises to 20 in a recession. That is why speed matters. That is why the functionality of the site maters, your reputation, ease of use, and word of mouth are totally crucial.

“We have a greater range than we require, than we cater for. In one sense 40,000 hotels is too much. But it gives more to the customer. Our system will generate a huge number of dynamic packages, 100m holidays every morning.”

Creative destruction

The turbulent times surrounding Paul Evans therefore encompass both the creative destruction of traditional tour operating and the abrupt termination of an ambitious low cost enterprise.

His insistence on product first technology agent partnership and customer control shaped a generation of dynamic packaging yet the 2016 collapse served as a reminder that bonding levels and consumer protection funds must keep pace with passenger volumes.

Ireland’s rapid adoption of the Lowcostbeds platform demonstrated the potential of a standing start market while the subsequent failure underlined the fragility of thinly capitalised growth.

The record of contracts rates systems and market shares remains a detailed case study for anyone examining how the travel sector moved from brochure led charters to real time dynamic offers and the hazards that accompanied that transition.

Gobbled up 75pc of fund

On 15 July 2016 the online travel agency Lowcostholidays collapsed. Twenty seven thousand people already on holiday and 112,000 future bookings were affected. The company had been bonded in Ireland for only €79243 while claims from Irish customers totalled €3.8 million depleting 75pc of the Travellers Protection Fund. The failure exposed the thin capitalisation that accompanied rapid growth in dynamic packaging. Evans had built a business that moved two and a half million passengers yet the Irish bonding arrangement proved inadequate for the scale of exposure. The episode illustrated the turbulence that can overtake even experienced operators when market conditions and regulatory safeguards diverge.

His legacy could have been different. As a colleague recalled, he had numerous opportunities to sell in the final 12 months but again seemed to always ask for too much. As you say it could have been very different but he was a very hard negotiator which possibly didn’t stand to him when looking for like minded partners. Life turns on a sixpence, or, in the case of Paul Evans, several million sixpences