Becoming More Than Just Accommodation

After an unexpected boost in popularity over the pandemic, glamping sites are becoming more common across the country meaning that it has never been more important to find ways to make your site stand out from the rest. International Glamping Business Editor Will Rusbridge caught up with Di Hammill Page, Founder of Wild Harvest, to find out how to elevate a glamping site beyond just being accommodation.

An influx of glamping sites set up throughout the pandemic along with the fact that the rules surrounding international holidays have now been relaxed has led to a situation where, “There is so much competition now in the glamping industry that you really need to move beyond just being accommodation and into offering ‘experiences’,” says Di, “Giving experiences means guests come away with some kind of transformation, having learned or achieved something, which will always yield more positivity and zest in their reviews than, for example, it had a nice bed.”

An ’About the Area’ section on a website is a great way to highlight the amazing things to do around a glamping site, but as Di points out, “A lot of sites refer their visitors to local attractions, that’s great but often after the stress of life getting to you, your guests are actually looking to chill out at your venue, so the more you can offer them in-house without drives and queues the more relaxed they will leave.”. And it’s clearly working for Wild Harvest as, “We are five-star reviewed on all platforms; we always aim to be reasonably priced then over deliver.”

If this sounds like hard work, it’s because it is. There is a huge amount of work that goes into offering educational activities and courses to guests that go far beyond showing up to teach the lesson, “We spend midweek prepping the sites and resources for the activities, with a pretty systematic method. I believe embedding efficient process into any business is important. I also now have staff to help, but basically a good structure to your week, treat it like a working routine and have tick lists for every process that you have, so that anyone can pick it up and do it, not just you,” explains Di.

While offering educational activities and courses does require a lot of time and effort, it will elevate your site to becoming more than just accommodation, allow you to attract more guests and make your site stand out.

Activity ideas for your glamping site

• Bike Hire • Guided Nature Walks • Crafts • Archery • Meditation • Yoga/pilates • Bird watching • Horse/donkey rides • Farm activities such as animal feeding • Painting/art classes

In terms of what you can offer at your site, there are a myriad of different options available and very few wrong answers. If your site is surrounded by beautiful countryside, then hiring bikes to guests or guided nature tours could be good options. If there is interesting wildlife in the area, then wildlife walks or birdwatching tours might be the way to go. It’s not all about your location, however. Are there any hobbies that you have that you think people might be interested in trying out? Archery, crafts, art/painting classes are always well received.

Wellness tourism is also a growing trend that is seeing increases in popularity year after year. It is also something that goes hand in hand with the back to nature ethos of glamping. Meditation classes, yoga classes or Pilates are all great ways to attract guests.

For 17 years now, Wild Harvest have offered nature-inspired activities sessions, “Willow weaving, making natural toiletries such as soap and bath bombs, candle making, wild food walks, archery and leatherwork. These are in the form of bite-sized, one-hour sessions and most of our groups take two. Thankfully the things we have always offered have remained popular and in fact have increased in popularity as folk are increasingly looking to connect with nature and up-skill.”

Di’s Top Tips

1) Planning Ahead

A great way to deal with the added workload that comes from offering activities for guests is to make life as easy as possible for yourself by planning ahead, “We have session plan and risk assessments, and resource lists printed and attached to the boxes for each activity. Each activities box has a first aid kit and hand sanitiser, and the boxes are checked and restocked each week according to its checklist. Where we have midweek bookings, we now have a buffer day as back-to-back ‘covid good to go’ turnarounds for multiple group glamping sites is too stressful in this current situation of a very low rural labour force. Last year I was doing 18-hour days, this year we have introduced buffer days!”

2) Embracing Technology

Di has also embraced technical solutions to aid in the process management, “We do this using online check lists that I and my staff can have on their phones. Software such as Trello and Jotform and I have created glamping and activities specific checklists/ forms to suit our own needs. With everything from session plans, risk assessments, housekeeping tasks, accident and incident forms all accessible from staff’s mobile phones.”

3) Check the Legalities

The legalities of running a glamping site are a lot more complicated than many people realise, “I have seen some very scary stove installations, lots offering a ‘bottle of bubbly on arrival’ (but it’s free so I don’t need a licence is an inaccurate assumption, if they have paid to be there you can’t use alcohol as an ‘extra’),” says Di.

So, when it comes to offering activities it’s no surprise there are laws here too, “One for example is that you can’t allow guests to book their activities at the same time as they book their glamping stay. You must ask them to book on 48 hours or more later otherwise you are classed as offering a package holiday and as such fall under a whole different set of legal requirements, such as you need a bonded account, be a member of a package tourism association such as ABTA etc. We have an online shop, where guests are referred to as part of an automated email sequence, where they can add on their activities, choose their date/time slot.”

4) Payment in Advance

While this is an extra hoop to jump through, it does have some positives for the glamping site owner, as Di explains, “We have always made the activities pre-bookable and payable in advance. This did not affect our business as genuine customers understand the need for this. We have to organise our tutors and buy materials, so payment and booking up-front is vital, we also know where we are financially then too.”

5) Insurance and Disclaimers

Another caution is that you will need extra, ‘activities specific’ insurance. Furthermore, it’s not enough to be just insured. If you read the small print in your insurance, you will often see further actions you must take, “The insurance company will sell you a policy, yes, but if there is a claim they will want to know: are you trained by the industry standard for that activity, if you offer food, are you actually registered with environmental health and keeping all the records, if there is an accident, did you have a risk assessment and can you demonstrate that you took precautions to reduce risk before the activity, did the accident get reported in the correct way/evidenced etc.

So, insurance is NOT enough,” explains Di, “You have to do ALL the peripheral things that an insurance company also expects you to do, or they will not pay out. Finally, disclaimers don’t work; we have a legal duty of care to our customers and so we should. Don’t try to put signs up saying, ‘take part at own risk’. These do not negate your legal duty of care which can only be met by having risk assessments, safety precautions drawn up from the risk assessments, being fully trained to the industry standard in that ‘thing’, if appropriate, AND insured. Insurance alone is not enough, and disclaimers are mostly ineffective.”

6) Spread the Word

Once you have the activities planned and have taken steps to protect both your guests and yourself, it’s time to start spreading the word. Wild Harvest market their courses through, “Our website by using S.E.O, Instagram and Facebook plus listing with various other bigger specialist websites. If you come on board with us as a glamping site offering Wild Harvest activities, we have a course that teaches you all this: the branding, marketing and advertising sides to your glamping business.”

Di Hammill Page

About Di Hammill Page Before founding Wild Harvest, Di already had a background as a qualified adult education tutor having taught law and psychology. Leaving academia, to raise her three children off-grid in a remote dale, she set up Wild Harvest School. The topics Di taught, “came about organically from the life I was leading; I was already a qualified adult ed. tutor and started teaching the lifestyle I was living as an off-grid eco. mother. Though it is not necessary to be a qualified tutor to teach adults in a private education setting.” Now, the Wild Harvest School operates from Wild Harvest Tipis in the rural outskirts of York where guests can enjoy a number of carefully curated activities and courses. On top of this, glamping site owners can become Wild Harvest franchisees gaining access to training courses that will allow them to hit the ground running offering activities and courses to their guests.

To find out more about Wild Harvest, you can find their website at www.wildharvest.org