SOARING BOOKINGS FOR OCTOBER BREAKS

Verdant Leisure, a bespoke holiday park operator with ten holiday parks in Scotland and the north of England, is reporting a continued trend for staycation bookings this autumn, with October bookings doubling on autumn 2019. “We’re continuing to see recordbreaking bookings across all our UK parks,” says Verdant Leisure’s Chief Executive, Graham Hodgson. “This is really helping to boost the local economies in the Scottish and English regions where our parks are located, as each park provides the customer base for numerous other regional businesses, including local suppliers, shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes and visitor attractions,” Verdant Leisure recently secured licences for some of its leisure parks which permit them to open for 12-months of the year.

With the enforced closure and demand for UK breaks now so high, the company was in talks with local authorities to agree this for 2020/2021. The nationwide lockdown from March-June put considerable strain on the many local economies in the UK that rely on tourism to survive. Therefore, extending ‘the season’ was high on the agenda for Verdant Leisure and the British tourism industry as a whole. “As with many businesses in the sector we have seen an uplift in last minute bookings with more people than ever wanting to take a break with their family in the UK – a trend which we predict will continue well into 2021.

We recently announced a half a million-pound investment to increase accommodation pitches at our Scottish parks to keep up with demand and these are due for completion in the next few weeks, ready for our autumn visitors,” continues Graham. Verdant has also recently invested £500,000 to keep up with the current staycation demand. A new luxury lodge development has been completed at its East Lothianbased Thurston Manor Leisure Park. The company is also starting a new pitch development at Perthshire-based Erigmore Leisure Park.