Peter Hutchinson, founder of Eurolanguages.com, talks about his day
WE LAUNCHED Eurolanguages.com last August, to make it easier for people to find and compare language schools and courses across Europe.
It’s a small market in Ireland, but if you’re a Spanish teenager a good portion of your time is spent figuring out where you want to go to learn English in the summer. Around 170,000 Spanish students travel each year to learn English.
Our main focus so far has been getting European schools and students on board, so there has been a lot of travel, which has been great.
Our office is in Dún Laoghaire, in Co Dublin. I live in Glasthule, so it’s just a walk away by the sea, which is lovely. Because it’s an internet-based business I can work from anywhere, so I work from home, too.
My business partner is based in Vienna right now, and our other staff member is in Turin, developing a promotional campaign.
I start at 9am most days and spend the first couple of hours on the phone or e-mailing schools to find out what courses they offer. The more comprehensive the site, the better for users.
We are all about language learning, but essentially it’s a travel site first and foremost. People’s image of language learning comes from school; our aim is to show them it doesn’t have to be like that.
By far the most effective way to learn is by immersion. With travel you get to fully experience it, living the language. We also have combinations such as Spanish and surfing, Italian and skiing or French and wine, which adds to the attractiveness. One of the fastest-growing areas in the industry is the over-55s booking language travel.
A large chunk of my time is devoted to raising finance. We’re talking to Enterprise Ireland and various State agencies about the money we need to develop new products for the language-school industry, so there are a lot of meetings.
At the moment we are working on a marketing campaign involving competitions where students win trips abroad. We then get valuable feedback and testimonials from them.
I knock off between 6.30pm and 8pm, and I might go to an internet-networking event. When you’re working for yourself you work harder, because the buck stops with you.
Because I fell into this line of work I’m not actually great at languages. I’m a good conversationalist in French and a weak one in Spanish. I’m not sure how good a conversationalist I am in English.
** Peter Hutchinson is the founder of Eurolanguages.com
** In conversation with Sandra O’Connell