Glamping and camping businesses missing out on early bookings, leading website warns
10 October 2018
Some glamping and camping sites are missing out on vital revenue, popular bookings website coolcamping.com have warned.
Early demand for advanced bookings this year have risen, following a hot summer and positive consumer sentiment. But many businesses are not yet processing bookings for 2019.
The warning comes following a swift rise in early booking enquiries received by Cool Camping and their new partner website glampingly.co.uk.
“Customers have been e-mailing us from as early as August to try and place bookings for the following year”, Cool Camping marketing manager James Warner Smith confirmed. “And, now we’re into autumn, demand has really risen, especially for glamping sites, which consumers fear will book out early.”
For more established holiday parks and glamping sites, creating online availability and setting prices for the new year have always been an essential piece of summer admin. Many have regularly returning customers who like to pre-book holidays in advance but, Cool Camping warned, there are worries that not all newer business owners are quick to recognise this trend.
“Many small business owners take a well earned break after the busy summer season and don’t start the heavy lifting again until winter”, Warner Smith commented. “While that’s fine for many aspects of the business, deciding on pricing and making dates available to book are vital tasks to get done early, to avoid needlessly missing out on revenue.”
Cool Camping’s founder, Jonathan Knight, also emphasised that potential customers could be lost.
“At this time of year potential customers often phone our London office asking about booking a specific campsite over the telephone because they are unable to do it online and just don’t realise that the site hasn’t yet made their 2019 dates available”, Knight said. “Not all customers will make that effort, however. Some may simply book elsewhere instead, preferring to get it sorted there and then, rather than getting on the phone or waiting and potentially missing out.”
For most glaming and camping businesses, setting up online bookings for the following year is a simple process. The majority of online booking systems, such as Bedful, allow you to clone the previous year’s seasons in the click of a button and simply modify the prices.
“Even better”, James Warner Smith concludes, “Set up your booking system for two or three years at a time, saving you hassle in the long run and giving you confidence that you will never ever miss advanced bookings. You’ll still be able to amend the prices on future years but you’ll always have dates available to book.”
