Romahome Hits High As Awards, Orders Flow In And Staff Increase Working Hours

COWES, United Kingdom – February 24, 2009: Award winning Romahome, the South’s only motorhome manufacturer, has won orders for six more vehicles during the National Boat Caravan and Outdoor Show, which has just finished at the NEC.

They were part of a total of 18 sales made by the Southampton-based Freeborn Group as a whole during the show, which brought in £500,000 revenue.

“In ordinary circumstances such a figure for orders at a major show might not be seen as remarkable,” said Freeborn Group managing director Andrew Jones.

“But these are exceptional times and Romahome is performing strongly in an industry where other manufacturers are laying off staff and cutting the working week.

“At Romahome’s Cowes factory, we have just gone onto a four day working week, too. But this is because the staff are now working 10 hour shifts instead of eight hours so they can come in on Fridays and weekends as overtime.

“The company seems to have hit the perfect blend of products at the right time, so as the recession bites for other makers we have suddenly become very attractive.

“One of the stars of the NEC show for us was the new R10, a single berth motorhome based on the small Citroën Nemo van. We sold four of these innovative vehicles, as well as an R20 two berth and R40 four berth. “These are additional to the forward work under way which will already see the factory busy well into the summer despite the increased hours.

“And as well as Romahome vehicles, we also sold six Auto-Trail vehicles at the high end of the market – one of them was valued at £54,000 – four vehicles from the Elddis range plus two used vehicles. All were good value sales that earned money for Freeborn and not just a case of moving volume.

“I felt very sad to see the gloom on some stands at the show. Dealers in the big American RVs might as well have stayed at home and other makers I spoke to were very despondent and talking of renewed staff lay-offs.

“But recent awards for Romahome helped lift our profile, as did the constant mentions for the R10 that have been cropping up on BBC’s Top Gear programme as it repeats across different channels.

“Romahome is currently Motorhome Manufacturer of the Year for Motorcaravan and Motorhome Monthly magazine, which also gave a bronze award to the R10. More recently, Which Motorcaravan gave an award as top Compact Motorhome of the Year to the R40 and made it runner-up in the overall Motorhome of the Year. On top of that, R10 was runner-up in the Multi-Purpose class.

“Awards bring prestige and visitors to our stands, and as well as the firm orders we received we also gave out close to 1,000 price lists and booked a good number of test drives through our own Southampton and Godalming motorhome outlets as well as through the other 10 Romahome dealerships across the UK.

“Invariably, the customer profile is one of older, retired people who are taking cash out of savings and spending it on lifestyle items because interest rates are now so low that cash in the bank is effectively eroding in value.

“The success of R10 at the show clearly demonstrates that Romahome continues to develop the right product at the right time. Everyone buying at NEC was downsizing but they still wanted quality allied to value, which Romahome provides.

“The show was a microcosm of what’s happening in the UK economy. Younger people were not spending because of job uncertainty while older people were keen to dispose of cash that would be unprotected by FSA compensation.

“Foreign travel has now become very expensive with the result that camping and caravanning in the UK have increased in appeal, with bookings up 40 per cent at campsites around the UK. This has also helped bring our most affordable models more into focus.

“Romahome and its SVP commercial vehicle building operation are helping the whole Freeborn Group have a healthy outlook although car sales have also started to revive in the last few weeks.

“The success of Romahome is largely down to its managing director, Brian Bailey, and his team reading the market and bringing forward models that will appeal for size, price, and quality – the latter borne out by the recent spate of awards.

“Another exciting product will be launching in the summer which I’m sure will help lift Romahome’s fortunes even further.”