Tackling Booking Fraud
Haven, the holiday firm that runs the Craig Tara site, said it had recently introduced state-of-the-art software that seeks to target and report suspicious pages and listings across social media sites. This follows a report from BBC Scotland which highlighted that dozens of people had paid for holidays in caravan parks, only to discover the real owner knew nothing about their booking.
Fraudsters using fake identities have been using social media channels to book families into caravans they do not own and claiming the money. Jane Clark, from Stevenston in Ayrshire, advised people not to believe what they read and make proper checks after she booked a bank holiday weekend at the Craig Tara caravan and paid £180 plus a £50 deposit – all through Facebook.
A Haven statement said: “Whilst we have only experienced a relatively small number of people who have been duped into making fraudulent bookings, we are committed to proactively targeting these sites where we can.” Haven advised customers to only book through “trusted channels” such as official websites, ABTA agents or affiliated third parties. It said: “We would urge customers not to attempt to make bookings through social media channels.”
Booming Sales
A family-run holiday business has claimed a double victory at this year’s Rural Business Awards (RBA’s).
Red Letter Event
World Leisure (UK) is a multi-award winning provider of a complete range of design, technical and installation services for the water leisure industry. With expertise in pool and plant design and installation, the company delivers projects ranging from exclusive domestic developments through to large international projects. Associated with the best manufacturers in the world for specialist equipment supplies, energy conservation is always at the forefront of design. As well as pool finishes, other core areas of expertise include water treatment plants, wave machines, water features, water slides, moveable floors, wellbeing controlled environments, and all other aspects of swimming pools that developments require. The company also has a dedicated wellness division, working throughout the UK, installing high quality climate-controlled environments and treatments rooms, including fully automatic rasul and serail mud treatments, Japanese salt steam rooms, Turkish hammams, and ice baths, for skin, respiratory and immune system health.
Energy Controls is the UK`s leading supplier of electricity SMART Meters and prepayment metering systems to Holiday Parks throughout the UK. The company specialises in providing customers with ‘cost neutral’, fully managed metering solutions including installation and support for prepayment meters as well as data collection for SMART Meters. Through their exclusive relationship with PayPoint, Energy Controls customers can now top up their meters using a variety of consumer-friendly options such as: Paypoint retailers nationwide, online or via the new ‘Smart Prepay’ mobile app for greater prepayment flexibility. Energy Controls appreciate the importance of safe, reliable and accurate metering and have become market leaders, not only by supplying the highest quality UK manufactured metering products, but also in terms of keeping customers informed about important changes in metering legislation. With 30 years of knowledge and expertise Energy Controls are perfectly placed to help businesses to plan and prepare for the future with confidence. Energy Controls guarantee to supply only the very latest metering products that have been designed and tested to Utility Company standards and therefore comply with the UK and EU`s current and future legislation such as MID (Measuring Instruments Directive).
Gemapark is a cloud booking and park management solution. Offering you the benefits of access from any location, reliable infrastructure and automated backups, they can get you up and running in just a few weeks. GemaPark provide a comprehensive range of easy to plugin booking widgets or a full booking API. Their booking widgets allow you to easily add online booking to your website and can provide an availably search, availability calendars, or park maps from which you can check availability and book. Features such as interactive chart, check-in dashboard and task lists make managing bookings easy. Automated emails for balance reminders, welcome and post visit emails, coupled with the ability to take online bookings and online balance payments, greatly reduce booking admin. At the show GemaPark will be able to demonstrate the system and give out an idea of the costs and benefits of the system.
Achieve transparency and efficiency savings with EliteParks Park Management Software. EliteParks comprehensively provides functionality to control the management of the whole business using the following business processes – Leads, Sales, Park Management, Owners, Reservations and Finances. EliteParks was created to disrupt a market saturated by archaic technology and systems using Microsoft Dynamics NAV technology. Their team includes consultants, developers and project managers with situational experience of working within the Caravan and Holiday Home industry. They work with the likes of Michael Paul Holidays UK, Park Holidays, Park Leisure and Shorefield Holidays. EliteParks is the most advanced management solution in the market to date being scalable for both multi-discipline income streams operating one park to multi park operators. If you are a holiday park operator and are looking for a consulting partner from the holiday park sector with Microsoft experience then book a demonstration to see how you can get better transparency and analysis across the whole business.
A leading leisure insurance provider, Caravan Guard, incorporating static caravan insurance specialist Leisuredays, is celebrating insuring more than 90,000 customer at over 900 UK Holiday Parks.
park operators. Their Stock Support service is designed to shorten the timescales usually associated with lodge purchases, speeding up the process to bring forward completion dates and aid cash flow.
Five touring caravan parks owned by Shrewsbury-based Morris Leisure based have all achieved a Certificate of Excellence from the traveller review website TripAdvisor.
Wish You Were Here - Highlands End Holiday Park
plus year history. The multi-award winning Hunstanton venue met its deadline of adding the extra facilities by the start of the school holidays with the investments in a raft of new activities, including an innovative new indoor splash zone.