Park Focus: Hendra Holiday Park

Posted on May 2, 2014

Hendra Holiday Park in Newquay is one of Cornwall’s largest parks, welcoming 380,000 visitors per year.

Park Focus: Hendra Holiday Park

For over 42 years, Hendra Holiday Park in Newquay has been a popular tourist destination for families and couples looking to explore the Cornwall coastline from the comfort of a 5-star caravan and camping site.

The family-run park has been owned and operated by three generations of the May and Hyatt families since it opened as a touring and camping park in 1972. Static holiday homes were added to the site in the mid 80’s and the park now boasts over 300 holiday homes and 500 touring, camping and motorhome pitches. Both May and Hyatt families still live on the site and are actively involved in the day to day running of the park.

Jon Hyatt, director at Hendra Holiday Park comments: “Our philosophy is to offer great family holidays for all budgets at the highest, 5 star quality standard. We invest heavily on an annual basis to improve, upgrade, build and install new facilities for our guests, to not only fulfil, but surpass their expectations.”

The park has a high profile among holidaymakers and is one of the largest in the county. The 80 acre site provides guests with various catering options, a supermarket, indoor and outdoor children’s play facilities as well as sports and entertainment activities. But as Jon explains, the park must constantly evolve to keep up with customer demand: “I would say the biggest challenge we face is continuing to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated market with higher and higher expectations from a holiday.” He adds: “Whilst Cornwall remains the UK’s favourite holiday destination, household spending on holidays has been reduced and competition from cheap overseas destinations with guaranteed weather is very strong.”

Continuous development and investment into the facilities and services has won Hendra numerous awards and accreditations including a National Quality Assured Scheme 5 star grading, an AA 5 Pennant award, and a Cornwall Tourism Award for Holiday Park of the Year and Sustainable Tourism. Most recently Hendra’s Fish & Chip Takeaway won Seasonal Fish & Chip Operator of the Year at the Seafish National Fish & Chip Awards.

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Hendra Holiday Park
Tel. 01637 875778
www.hendra-holidays.com

Woodovis Park

Posted on April 23, 2014

The team offer a great warm welcome to guests and the park has been named as a finalist for the Hoseasons' Diamond Award for customer care.

Woodovis Park

Proving that bigger isn’t always better, the multi award-winning Woodovis Park is a small, peaceful 5 star holiday park nestled on the edge of Devon’s Tamar Valley. Offering a mix of camping, glamping, touring and luxury caravan options, the park has scooped many top level awards in recent years for its excellent facilities and services.

Owner John Lewis comments: “We have over 21,000 bed nights per season. During the shoulder seasons we tend to attract either families with preschool children or retired folk, looking for a great value holiday in a particularly quiet time. During the school holidays our guests are made up of families who are looking for great facilities in a peaceful and safe setting. “We find that our glamping offerings attract young professional couples all year round – most of whom are looking for the outdoor experience with all the comforts that our pod and super pods provide.” Now in its fifteenth year of ownership by John and Dorothy Lewis, the park employs eight full-time staff and is a member of Best of British, a group of 50 independently owned 5 star holiday parks.

On-site facilities include an indoor solar-heated swimming pool, spa and infra-red therapy sauna, with weekly archery and ‘water walking’ in the pool. There’s also an indoor games room and outdoor table tennis. “With a return visitor rate in excess of 70% year on year undoubtedly the biggest marketing tool is word of mouth recommendation,” explains John. “This is closely followed by the internet and especially review sites such as Trip Advisor where Woodovis Park scores five stars and was recently a recipient of a Certificate of Excellence.” He adds: “The biggest challenge for us is the unpredictable English weather, which is why we have ensured that Woodovis Park is well placed to deal with this.

There is a vast range of indoor facilities to keep guests occupied during bad weather.” One of the park’s unique selling points is its commitment to being energy efficient and environmentally friendly; it was recently named the Best Holiday Park & Camping Site in Britain by the world’s leading sustainable tourism accreditation programme, the 2013 Green Tourism Goldstar Awards. It also received a gold David Bellamy Award last year and a gold in the Green Tourism Business Scheme. John explains: “Our mission is to provide exceptional facilities for our guests, whilst maintaining our green integrity. It’s easy to reel off green platitudes, but at Woodovis we try to make it a natural part of the way the business is run.

The beauty of our park and surrounding areas is one of the main reasons visitors come here and we want to sustain that for generations to come.” Maintaining their dedication to providing excellent facilities and services for their guests, the park owners will be implementing a number of improvements to the site during the year. John explains: “New for the 2014 season will be the dog exercise meadow where dogs can run off the lead. Also, following guest feedback, a new loo and chemical disposal point is being installed to serve the Tamar View Field. As part of a planned rolling replacement programme, a brand new Finch Holiday Home will join the hire fleet and dates are being added during the school holidays for performances from internationally acclaimed story tellers.”

Woodovis Park

Email : info@woodovis.com
www.woodovis.com

Pick Of The Bunch

Posted on April 16, 2014

The Thistle Holidays Parks initiative focuses on promoting the quality of Scotland’s best holiday and camping parks.

Pick Of The Bunch

Recognising and promoting the very best holiday and caravan parks in Scotland is the core aim of the Thistle Holiday Park scheme.
By supporting its members with marketing initiatives throughout the year, the scheme provides holiday makers with above: The Thistle Holidays Parks initiative focuses on promoting the quality of Scotland’s best holiday and camping parks with information and advice, allowing them to make an informed decision when choosing a holiday destination.
Many holiday parks and attractions already support the scheme, including Discovering Distilleries, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Historic Scotland, the Forestry Commission Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland.
Thistle project manager Judith Sleigh, explains: “Good quality and good value will continue to be important to holidaymakers, and as we offer both, our members are able to profit. The challenge, however, in an era when cheap flights abroad to guaranteed sunshine, is that Thistle Parks continue to improve their product and establish themselves as being in the forefront of the industry.”
Recently, parks involved in the scheme have been able to take full advantage of the staycation trend which kicked in with the economic downturn, due to domestic visitors looking for holidays which offer both good quality and good value for money in Scotland and England.
By joining the scheme, holiday parks can benefit from a number of marketing tools to promote their park. All members are entitled to an entry in the Thistle brochure, which is distributed at over 10,000 information centres and is downloadable from the website. The brochure is also circulated at various exhibitions and trade shows throughout the year, and a further 600 copies are mailed out to those on the Thistle database. Members are also entitled to an editable entry on the Thistle website, which receives over 80,000 visitors per year.
To become a member, caravan parks must meet certain criteria; firstly the parks must be awarded four or five stars by VisitScotland. They must also have high quality lodges and holiday home caravans, and at least some touring pitches on firm ground, with links to services and facilities. David Halley, current chairman of Thistle Holiday Parks, says: “As the owner of a small park on Loch Lomond, I joined Thistle because of the extra promotion and also because I felt that the industry had to work together and Thistle offered the right vehicle for this by enabling us to get to the market, as a group, with the right message in the right way. Having Tourism Scotland as the project manager means that the promotion is professionally handled; the owners are running their parks and don’t have time to devote to marketing.”
The Thistle Holidays Parks scheme began back in the 1970’s and was a joint initiative between the tourism industry and the Scottish Tourist Board. The Board was one of the first to undertake a wide-ranging inspection of both serviced and self-catering accommodation in a drive to improve the quality of facilities and services. Caravan parks were able to have their holiday home caravans checked against a precise set of criteria, which included fixed heating throughout, mains drainage, and double-glazing.
In 2012, the Scottish Tourist Board, renamed VisitScotland, handed Thistle Holiday Parks over to the industry, to a committee which included owners and managers of parks of various sizes and types. The concept of Thistle Parks was extended to include touring as well as self-catering, but the criteria for inclusion continued to be based on high quality.
David Key, Regional Director of Parkdean Holidays has also been closely involved in the initiative since it began: “The industry was keen to work with the Scottish Tourist Board in order to raise the overall quality of the parks by encouraging them to invest in their product. We appreciated the fact that the board gave considerable funding to support the scheme in order to promote the high quality of the parks and their accommodation. Parkdean, with six parks in Scotland, felt and still do that being a member of Thistle is important.”

Tel. +44 (0)1651 806014
Email. Tourism.Scotland@btopenworld.com
www.thistleparks.co.uk

Part Exchange: A Win-Win Option

Posted on March 24, 2014

Peace of mind from the certainty gained was the main benefit of part exchange for Yvonne and Bill King, who are now happily enjoying their new lifestyle.

Part Exchange: A Win-Win Option

If you want to increase your park home sales, but are finding it difficult to secure buyers, part exchange could be the answer.
Quick Move Properties is the UK’s largest property part exchange company, allowing new home and park home providers to offer risk-free, hassle-free and guaranteed part exchange on their customers’ existing homes as an incentive for them to purchase onward.
“Usually, customers use our service if they need to sell a second home, an investment property or an inherited property in order to release capital to purchase their holiday home,” explains a spokesperson for Quick Move Properties. “Or, others are downsizing and use the equity released from their existing property to purchase a smaller property and a holiday home.
“We work with leisure parks, leisure home manufacturers and individual vendors. To date, over 5,000 properties have been purchased through Quick Move, with a total value of £725 million.”

MARKET VAGARIES
Bill and Yvonne King were interested in using part exchange to avoid the vagaries of the housing market when selling their existing property, but didn’t think it could be as straightforward as it appeared. Bill comments: “I looked into part exchange and liked everything about it, particularly the speed at which a sale could be completed, even though at this stage I had no idea how high the service level would be.”
He adds: “I did my research, asked lots of questions and asked for an offer, I was aware that it would be below market value but I was pleasantly surprised. I worked out that although I may have achieved a bit more on the open market, when you then take out the £6,000 estate agency fees and the £1,000 solicitor fees that you don’t have to pay with Quick Move Properties’ part exchange, it suddenly became a relatively small price to pay for all the time, stress and risk we saved.”
Peace of mind from the certainty gained was the main benefit of part exchange for the Kings. They knew exactly how much money they were going to get and on exactly which date, with no worrying about the sale falling through.

Quick Move Properties
Email. px@quickmoveproperties.co.uk
Parks team: +44 (0)1793 840907
Vendors team: +44 (0) 1793 840931
www.quickmoveproperties.co.uk

Work Hard, Play Hard

Posted on March 20, 2014

Work Hard, Play Hard

Butlins are continuously investing to make sure that their resorts are up to the standards that modern British families expect.

Celebrating its 78th birthday this year, Butlins has successfully stood the test of time and remains a firm favourite among families and holidaymakers looking for a break a little closer to home.

Owned by Bourne Leisure, Butlins welcome more than 1.6million guests to their three resorts each year, spread acrossthe season from February half term through to New Year’s Eve. Around half of the guests that visit each year are repeat visitors, illustrating a strongsense of brand loyalty. The company attributes its success to being a family inclusive resort, offering a huge variety of shows, entertainment, activities and dining and accommodation choices at affordable prices. Dermot King, managing director at Butlins reveals: “We know that the key to success is continuous investment into the resorts to make sure that we keep the standard that modern British holidaymakers expect.

Our aim is to provide holiday resorts where families can happily enjoy a holiday in a safe, secure and appealing environment. Families work hard to come away and we aim to give them a break from the daily routine of normal life and let them spend quality time together, whilst we take care of the hard work.”

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Hoburne Celebrates Gold Honours

Posted on March 19, 2014

The Hoburne team celebrate winning gold at the Beautiful South Awards for Excellence

Hoburne Celebrates Gold Honours

Hoburne Holiday Parks have scooped a gold tourism trophy in the prestigious Beautiful South Awards for Excellence.

Hoburne Bashley, on the boundary of the New Forest National Park, was named the top Caravan Holiday Park and Holiday Village of the Year at the awards ceremony hosted by Tourism South East in West Sussex.

Hoburne chairman, Rosie Kennar, said: “This is absolutely fantastic news and richly deserved by our superb Bashley team. This celebration marks the end of another successful year for Hoburne. We have enjoyed the most incredible summer; bookings have risen year-on-year again, we won the coveted UK Family Business of the Year award and earlier this month Hoburne Naish won the Hoseasons Diamond Award for the best family fun holiday park in the south of England.” This is the second year Hoburne has triumphed at the awards; Hoburne Naish in New Milton was awarded silver in 2012. Hoburne Bashley will now go on to compete in the VisitEngland awards next year.

Tourism South East chairman, Ken Robinson CBE, added: “It is great to see such excellence rewarded. The awards represent the culmination of hard work and dedication by the best tourism professionals, in our best tourism businesses, that have been recognised for providing such outstanding customer experiences. I look forward to seeing our winners go on to represent the South East on the national stage at the Visit England Awards for Excellence in 2014.”

Plans Approved For Major New Holiday Park

Posted on March 19, 2014

The new Silverlake park will include up to 1,000 state-of-the-art holiday chalets, plus a country club & spa.

Plans Approved For Major New Holiday Park

Plans for a major new holiday park development have been given the go ahead by West Dorset District Council.

Up to 750 jobs are expected to be created, alongside hundreds of millions of pounds of construction investment, with the building of Silverlake on the site of the existing Warmwell Quarry near Crossways in Dorset.

Habitat First Group, which also owns award-winning and highquality sustainable holiday accommodation in the Cotswolds, is planning to build up to 1,000 holiday chalets and lodges, a country club and spa, while protecting hundreds of species of wildlife on the 560 acre site, as well as reinvigorating the local economy.

Will Vicary, managing director of Habitat First Group, commented: “We are pleased that the councillors have approved our request for outline planning permission. We are planning to create a truly unique concept for Dorset which boosts the economy, protects and manages the environment and benefits the local community with a long-term strategic plan for the quarry.”

A key component of the project is to protect and encourage wildlife at the site, with species surveys having been carried out to identify the key areas of ecological importance for breeding birds, reptiles, otters, water voles and bats for example.

As well as the development of the site itself, which is well concealed from its immediate surroundings, the plans include a focus on supporting the local tourist economy with the use of buses linking Silverlake with Moreton station, Dorchester, Weymouth, Poundbury and the coast, as well as the creation of cycling and foot paths so as to discourage car use. Will Vicary added: “We have been highly consistent in our vision and our approach of working closely with the local community.

Silverlake delivers nature conservation and landscape management at the highest level and firmly ties in with the key objectives in the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework and West Dorset District Council’s local planning strategy.” Silverlake is expected be a key economic driver for the future of the West Dorset economy, encouraging inward investment, local spending and further employment. The construction stage alone is predicted to generate £470 million over a 20 to 30 year period, of which over half would be spent with local businesses.

Raising The Risk Management Bar

Posted on March 7, 2014

Dolphins River Park has been recognised for steps they have taken to reduce the risk of flood damage, including raised bases.

Raising The Risk Management Bar

Dorset-based Dolphins River Park has been awarded the 2014 Leisuredays Risk Management Award for its work in reducing flood risk.

The annual award commends leisure parks that demonstrate superb risk management and help to minimise potential claims. Situated in Bridport close to the River Char, Dolphins River Park was severely flooded in July 2012. The park has since undergone a topographic land survey and installed raised bases on many of its units.

Leisuredays Business Development Manager, Alan Dixon, who presented the award to Park Manager Terry Gilbert, said: “Dolphins River Park’s risk reduction success is undeniable. The park was devastated by the summer floods in 2012, which damaged multiple units. Now in 2014, thanks to its commitment to reducing risk and its ongoing investment, Dolphins River Park is the perfect example of how risk management can help protect parks from the threat of flood and adverse weather.”

Leisuredays flood consultant has worked closely with Dolphins Park to survey the land and monitor flood risk on the park. This, coupled with the success of raised bases, ensured that no units were damaged by flood in 2013 and early 2014. Commenting on the award, park manager Terry Gilbert said: “Knowing that other parks in the country have flooded - some worse than ours - it is an honour to receive the award in recognition of all our hard work. Risk management is important for the safety and wellbeing of caravan owners, and it helps to keep insurance premiums down."

Destructive Winter Storms

Posted on March 7, 2014

Carmathen Bay Holiday Village in South Wales was battered by storm and flood. Pic: Rebecca Evans AM.

Destructive Winter Storms

With Wales and the South West hardest hit, holiday parks have been left counting the cost of the wettest winter since records began.

According to the British Holiday and Home Parks Association (BH & HPA), hundreds of its 2,000-plus park members suffered damage during the month-long onslaught from the weather. Few sites escaped completely unscathed from the violent storms in addition to sea and river flooding.

Among those affected, 70 static chalets were flooded at the Carmarthen Bay Holiday Village in South Wales, and 20 residents were rescued from Bablockhythe caravan site in Oxfordshire, following the River Thames bursting its banks in February.

However, thanks to the fast action taken by many holiday parks and their insurers following the destructive storms of winter, it’s likely to be business as usual for the majority of the industry this spring. “It is a credit to the prescience and resilience of the industry that preparations for the winter months protected so many park assets,” said a spokesperson for the BH & HPA said.

“Where there was damage, many were able to stage a very rapid recovery from the weather’s attack.” Repair and restoration work was often underway within days of parks being hit, helped by insurance loss adjusters who frequently attended within hours of receiving emergency calls.

The spokesperson added: “The total bill for putting the UK parks industry back together after the freak storms has not yet been assessed, but will certainly run to millions of pounds. However, the cost is unlikely to impact on what families will pay this year or in the future for their holidays, or for buying a holiday home.”

Cotswolds Holiday Park Expands Leisure Facilities

Posted on February 11, 2014

Cotswolds Holiday Park Expands Leisure Facilities

The new social complex at Leedons Holiday Park offers visitors and residents additional recreational facilities.

Caravan park operator Allens Caravans has recently invested in a new state-of-the-art indoor swimming pool and social complex at Leedons Holiday Park in the Cotswolds.
Disused buildings on the holiday park site were demolished to make way for the new facility, which includes a 15m x 6m indoor swimming pool and changing rooms, a large social hall area and a hair studio.
The project was carried out by Derbyshire based pool and commercial building specialists Pinelog, who proposed a contemporary yet practical design of a timber frame building that folds into the landscape. The almost symmetrical, low profile structure, has two main wings housing the swimming pool and hall with separate mono-pitched roofs over the wings and central part of the building.
Pinelog also applied a number of sustainable design and energy efficient features to the leisure centre. In addition to the timber frame and larch cladding being constructed from sustainably produced materials, the building also includes solar roof panels, natural ventilation, extensive use of natural light, heat recovery from the extract ventilation, low energy lighting and recycling the swimming pool water.

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Park Focus: Hendra Holiday Park