touring park

£750,000 INVESTMENT IN LUXURY GLAMPING RESORT

Posted on May 3, 2025

AN AERIAL VIEW of the Love2Stay touring and glamping resort.

Rising demand for short breaks has prompted Salop Leisure to invest £750,000 in expanding the award-winning Love2Stay glamping and touring resort near Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The investment will fund five new luxury holiday lodges at the popular Love2Stay glamping village, enhancing the resort’s existing accommodation options.

According to Salop Leisure’s joint managing director, Mark Bebb, the 25 to 35 age group is increasingly opting for up to five short breaks per year, driven by a desire for convenience, flexibility, and luxury. “We’re attracting visitors from across the UK and beyond, particularly from Holland,” said Mr. Bebb.

“Guests love our natural cold water bio swimming pool, hot springs, and the chance to reconnect as a family away from technology.” The resort’s appeal extends to multi-generational holidays, with grandparents often staying on the touring park while their children and grandchildren enjoy lodge accommodation.

Families value the opportunity to spend quality time together surrounded by nature. Set within 22 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds, Love2Stay offers panoramic views of the Shropshire Hills and Wales. Guests enjoy access to a bio swimming pool, splash pool and beach, a cinema, wellness services, and diverse outdoor activities.

Designed by Mr. Bebb to promote tranquillity and wellbeing, the resort aims to help guests “experience the grass between their toes.” Now featuring 27 lodges alongside touring caravan pitches, Love2Stay celebrates its eighth anniversary this May, continuing to deliver five-star luxury escapes for romantic retreats and family getaways alike.

JOINED-UP THINKING

Posted on August 2, 2022

JOINED-UP THINKING

A complete park management and booking system...

Visitors to Folly Farm, Pembrokeshire’s award-winning tourist attraction of 30 years, often commented that you needed two days to do everything on offer. With 100 acres of land to the North of the attraction, the team listened to their visitors and set about creating their own Folly Farm Holiday Park. Offering a wide range of accommodation for the family market to suit all budgets, to date Folly Farm boasts a 43 pitch-touring park, a 20-pitch campsite, four Showman’s Wagons and six fairground themed luxury lodges with hot tubs. A further eight luxury lodges and six safari tents will open soon.

 

 

LOCKDOWN LAUNCH
“We were confident there would be huge interest in our accommodation offering from our strong and loyal customer base but then the pandemic hit and we found ourselves launching our touring park after the first lockdown in July 2020 with just three weeks’ notice,” explains Zoe Wright, Head of Marketing “We achieved a 76 per cent occupancy rate that first August and followed that in August 2021 with 94 per cent.” Ease-of-use was top of the list when Folly Farm was selecting a booking system so the team partnered with the highly recommended GemaPark . GemaPark has exceeded our expectations in terms of a booking system for our touring park and campsite,” confirms Zoe.

“In fact, we also import into GemaPark partner bookings for accommodation we don’t sell directly, because it provides top line booking, arrivals and performance information in a much more user- friendly way than our booking partners’ systems,” she adds. GemaPark is used by many members of the team at Folly Farm. Holiday park wardens use it to generate arrivals reports and to check if customers are returners so they can welcome them back. Office staff confirm all the bookings and chase payments while the marketing team can easily upload or change tariffs and run property performance reports and push any availability. The finance team can easily reconcile payments, run spend-per-head reports and financial forecasts.

EASE OF USE
“Every member of staff finds it easy to use and it’s one of the few software systems we use that the staff don’t moan about,” says Zoe. “Reporting was a key consideration as we’d little to no experience of running accommodation so to be able to easily query occupancy rates, property performance for our different accommodation options and check financial performance has been pivotal to the future development of the holiday park,”

Zoe continues. “CRM was also important as we were building an accommodation audience from scratch. “We would happily recommend GemaPark to anyone looking for a booking solution for their touring site or campsite and the fact they can easily integrate with leading booking partners is a bonus.”

Netguides/GemaPark
T: 01983 282420
W: www.netguides.co.uk
W: www.gemapark.co.uk

Old Oaks Pamper Pooches

Posted on June 26, 2015

Old Oaks Pamper Pooches

Pooches

A range of dog-friendly initiatives have been implemented at Old Oaks Touring Park near Glastonbury.

It’s famous the world over for its music festival – but now Glastonbury is also hitting the right note for dog lovers, thanks to the Old Oaks Touring Park.

The award-winning camping and caravan site is putting pooches on a pedestal by providing them and their owners with a range of dog-friendly facilities.

A hot water doggy shower has installed at the park as well as a dedicated washing machine and tumble dryer for laundering pet bedding. A large securely-fenced exercise area has been sectioned off specifically for dog walking and the park has compiled a list of dog-friendly discovery walks, restaurants and local attractions. But, of course, not all establishments relish Rovers – so the Old Oaks has teamed up with a local dog walking business which will take the lead when owners wish to venture out alone.

James and Tara White are the husband-and-wife management team at the Old Oaks Touring Park which has been in the same family’s ownership for over 30 years.

 

Challenging Outdated Perceptions

Posted on April 20, 2015
bikes

The new Freedom To Go campaign aims to introduce a younger generation of holidaymakers to caravan and motorhome holidays.

Challenging Outdated Perceptions

The UK’s largest clubs for camping and caravanning – the National Caravan Council (NCC) and The Camping and Caravanning Club have joined forces to promote the benefits of caravans and motorhomes to a new generation of holidaymakers.

Designed to attract younger audiences to this much-loved style of holiday, the ‘Freedom to go’ campaign will draw on the appeal of the great outdoors and the freedom to explore that owning a leisure vehicle presents and will include a dedicated website plus nationwide advertising.

“A key objective of the campaign is to decrease the average age of leisure vehicle ownership by five years and get new entrants into the market,” commented Jennifer Summers, NCC group marketing director.

“In order to do that, we aim to turn the perception of camping and caravanning on its head and illustrate the appeal of this type of holiday to modern families and adventurous travellers alike. There hasn’t been a better time to convert more British consumers to this type of holiday and grow the market for all types of leisure vehicle ownership.”

The campaign will showcase beautiful British destinations and unique adventures that touring holidays make possible whilst recommending which type of leisure vehicle will suit individual needs and tastes.

Nick Lomas, director general of The Caravan Club added: “This is an important step the industry is taking. The Caravan Club is delighted to help champion this initiative.”