Holiday bookings via the popular camping and glamping website coolcamping.com reached their highest daily volume since 22nd August 2019, the website have announced, following a spike in bookings on Sunday.
The high demand for glamping holidays comes one week after the release of the UK government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy, which proposed the re-opening of some hospitality businesses from 4th July at the very earliest. The sharp increase in bookings also coincides with coolcamping.com launching a new Coronavirus Booking Guarantee, offering customers the opportunity to pay just 20% to make their initial reservation and flexibility for up to 18 months if holidays are affected by the pandemic.
“Booking behaviour will be driven by government guidance, but there is a lot of uncertainty. Which is why we felt that introducing our Coronavirus Booking Guarantee was important – to give people more flexibility and introduce confidence back into the market,” Cool Camping founder Jonathan Knight commented.
“The mooted date of 4th July is ideal timing not only for holidaymakers looking for a summer break, but also for glamping sites, and could totally save many accommodation businesses who have had no income this year.”
The Coronavirus Booking Guarantee is an optional scheme for glamping businesses, though over 90 sites had joined the scheme within the first three days of its launch.
The guarantee was part of a raft of changes on coolcamping.com revealed last weekend. These included a new ‘Social Distancing Measures’ field on glamping listings, allowing owners to detail changes they plan to make at their site or inside accommodation, along with a series of social distancing ‘tags’ and user guides that help customers find accommodation with specific facilities, such as private bathrooms or increased amounts of space between units.
“The Cool Camping website has been quickly adapted to meet the new needs of holiday makers”, marketing manager James Warner Smith told International Glamping Business. “We’re pleased to have had a fast and fantastic response from our customers, with a huge increase in bookings over the weekend.”
“With foreign travel looking increasingly difficult this summer, we’re optimistic that the season could prove particularly fruitful for UK businesses if they’re able to open in line with the current timetable”.
