The Future of Glamping and How You Can Benefit

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The trends therefore are as follows:

  • People taking their main holiday (typically one or two weeks) in the UK fluctuates year on year. The economy obviously has an impact on this but of course so does the weather and if those Vitamin D deprived of us are wanting a bit of guaranteed sunshine, then Whitby might just not cut the mustard. But one thing you can never take away is that we like the convenience of a UK holiday and those that do so laugh in the face of those poor sops having to suffer the humiliation of getting virtually undressed at airport security only to find out that their flight has been delayed by seventeen days (OK slight exaggeration here)
  • Those holidaying in the UK are more likely to be found in the 55+ demographic – probably because, as per comments above, they don’t like taking their clothes off in public anymore
  • Short breaks are the main driving force of the UK holiday business and show constant year on year growth. They provide very good shoulder season opportunities and are taken all year round.
  • We are spurning full service hotels more in order to go the self-catering route. I blame Jamie Oliver for this
  • We now book holidays or short breaks at the last minute (because we can) and we like a bit of a deal
  • We like things which are a bit quirky – let’s face it we are Brits and we did give the world Monty Python and Jeremy Corbyn
  • Provenance is growing in importance – we love the fact that the frothy beer we are drinking is actually supplied by a local lad who got made redundant from his job but has now set up his own micro-brewery in his parent’s bedroom
  • We are becoming ever more discerning about the quality and type of accommodation we like to stay in
  • UK retirees take on average 3 x holidays per year and they like going on holiday with their family too (inter-generational holidays). They’ve got the money and they’ve got the time.
  • Wellness tourism is becoming very popular – I have written a previous blog about this which can be found at the below link:

wellness blog

Faced with these facts, I would first of all work out what sort of accommodation I needed to offer as there are undoubtedly a plethora of options available to me. Price wise, or investment wise, you have bell tents at around the £500 – £600 mark, moving on up to tipis at £1,500 – 1700, yurts and camping pods at £5,000 to £7,000, shepherd’s huts at £25K fully kitted out and then you are into 2 or 3 bedroom lodges starting at say £50,000 and going up to £100,000.

All of these are great products and do their job but I can’t help thinking to myself that if my market research serves me right, does the recently retired and financially emancipated retiree want to stay in a canvas tent however much I dress it up to be nice inside?

And if self-catered short breaks are the way to go and I am now competing against country house hotels, boutique B&bs and pubs, even Air BnB, how am I going to be able to offer something different which is comfortable and warm, can be used all year round, a bit quirky perhaps and which offers a unique experience to set me apart from everyone else scrapping it out for this business.

Now I need to look at the costs and my potential return on investment. Although bell/safari tents and yurts etc do not necessarily mean that I have to look at an IPO (Initial Placement Offering) on the London Stock Exchange or call up Richard Branson for a bung, are they now really representative of where the market is heading? And also what is a realistic life expectancy of these type of products bearing in mind that they are going to be put out to work every day? Let’s not forget too dear reader that we have something in this country called rain.

The camping pods look good and are well priced but when I research all of the companies who are selling these, it strikes me that they all look pretty much the same. Even the ones which have WC/showers and kitchenettes in very much follow the same aesthetic theme. How then am I going to stand out in the crowd when I am trying to market my site?

The 2 and 3 bedroom lodges would fit the bill for sure but I am worried that they would constitute quite a significant slug of my investment pot and they are a different financial beast to the more typical afore-mentioned glamping options. Plus I am new into this business so this represents quite a risk to me.

I am now beginning to re-think my acceptance speech for winning the Best New Holiday Site of the Year Award 2017 but luckily salvation is at hand. And it looks like this www.greenecoliving.co.uk The New Chalet Pod