Having transformed the face of European air travel with his budget airline easyJet, billionaire entrepreneur Stelios Haiji-Ioannou told an audience in Bermuda a similar venture linking Caribbean destinations could work if the right-sized aircraft can be found.

While not speculating on whether he would be the one to realise such a short-haul airline venture, the Greek-born businessman said another concept uppermost in his mind is the idea of starting an ?easyResort? for holidaymakers seeking a cut-price break in the region.

Stelios, 39, who prefers to be known by his first name, has dipped his toe into the Caribbean market this winter bringing his cruise ship easyCruise One to provide budget cruises between six islands including Barbados and St. Lucia.

Appearing as a keynote speaker on the final day of the tenth Annual Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel, Stelios gave a short history of how he created the easyGroup brand that now has 15 diverse products ranging from a budget airline to car hire, internet cafes and hotels.

Asked if he would consider bringing his Europe-centric easyJet budget flights on long haul routes to the Caribbean, he said: ?EasyJet is not a long haul airline. I do not think that the low-cost business model for an airline works very well for long haul flights. People have different needs, they spend more money for bigger seats or an in-flight bed or a better meal. If you were to start a low-cost long haul carrier it would end up looking like the carriers that are around today.?

The easyJet success had been achieved in Europe, he said, because the established major airline companies were ?sitting ducks? as most short haul passengers were prepared to forego extra frills such as an in-flight meal if they could have a low price with a reliable operator providing frequent flights.

Stelios added: ?It would be very interesting for someone to try to develop an inter-Caribbean short haul airline.?

But would he be the one to give it a go?

The entrepreneur said he was keeping his eye on the smaller Embraer passenger jets now favoured by American low-fare carrier JetBlue Airways to ?see what it does once it has had a few more years of operation?.

He said an inter-Caribbean budget airline company would need smaller planes to succeed because of economies of scale.

?The smallest jet we use now carries 115 passengers, which is probably too big for the Caribbean. So someone has to try and find the right equipment ? probably around 70 to 90 seats ? and set up a locally-based company,? said Stelios.

While an easyJet franchise linking up the Caribbean may not be on the cards just yet, the easyGroup brand is currently operating in the region through the easyCruise venture.

The first easyCruise ship has been brought across from the Mediterranean, where it operates in the summer months, to run cruises between six islands including Barbados in the eastern Caribbean during the winter.

Stelios hopes to expand the service and believes Caribbean countries will benefit.

The cruise ships have a target market much younger than that of normal cruise operators ? with customers generally in their 30s, said Stelios.

?I decided on something very different. It wasn?t about bigger and bigger ships ? it is about leaving the ship in port at night. People have the option to stay on board or to go ashore,? he said.

?Our customers enjoy as much the experience of going ashore as staying onboard the ship. People do different things on different nights perhaps trying some local cuisine.

?I think that is very interesting for the Caribbean and, as a cruise line, we have to work with the Caribbean. We are bringing customers that will not disappear at 6 p.m. like other cruise ships visitors. They will stay in port at night and contribute to the local economy.

?They will keep the bars going and the restaurants going. And some of them, because we have a completely flexible hop-on, hop-off concept, will stay in a hotel for a couple of days so it is complimentary with a hotel stay - two or three days cruise and a couple of days on an island and then move on.?

He added it would take a few years for the frequency of the cruise ship operation to allow ?a real hop-on, hop-off experience.?

Illustrating the easyGroup product, Stelios described the easyHotels that are now operating in London and Basel, Switzerland, offering small rooms ranging from seven square metres in size to 15 square metres and costing as little as $20 a night.

?My idea was to have an urban small room. You have to be able to stand up with a private bathroom,? he said.

?I think that concept has a lot of legs for areas where it?s relatively expensive and people who are on a short stay are willing to sacrifice space for price.?

He said some of the rooms have no window because it was an example of an unnecessary addition as many people were only staying in the rooms for five or six hours.

He added: ?The second idea is that house-keeping is an optional extra too, so when you arrive the room is laid out but if you want further housekeeping during your stay you have to pay extra and what that has done has reduced the number of housekeeping visits we have to make to our rooms, so it reduces our labour costs.?

Stelios said he was impressed by the Caribbean during his visits setting up the easyCruise venture. He said he was torn between setting up another branch of the easyGroup franchise this year or simply consolidating the 15 easyGroup brands now in the portfolio.

Asked what might be next for easyGroup, he said: ?It will probably be in the travel and tourism area and, spending time out here, someone mentioned why not have an easyResort ? a step away from the hotels I just described.?