otherclive said:
Hoomer said:
Dustydog said:
Maybe this from the NCC explains things.
The Caravan Industry in the UK:
contributes more than £6 billion p.a. to the UK economy (revenue from sales of products and related services, holiday bookings etc)
employs about 130,000 people, including part time and seasonal staff (mainly on parks)
Caravanning is an important contributor to UK tourism:
About £2 billion was spent on caravan holidays across Great Britain in 2016
In the region of 50 million nights are spent in caravans each year
In the UK, it is estimated that there are in current use:
555,000 touring caravans
365,000 caravan holiday homes
225,000 motorhomes
True, but compared to Europe it’s little more than a niche market with some very strange and archaic rules dating back from the days when camping was effectively forbidden to deter gypsies.
The very low densities of UK sites thanks to the curios 6m rule makes sites near civilisation hideously expensive to own due to land prices . Suites the two big ‘clubs’ who don’t really do mass market, but puts a dead hand on the commercial sector who don’t want to be ‘reassuringly expensive’
I’m having a bit of difficulty understanding your logic. Are you saying that you prefer sites where everyone is closer together?
One significant difference between UK and Europe is that our sites tend to have a much longer season March-Early Nov being commonplace with a goodly number being 11-12 months opening. Whereas in Europe a far higher percentage of sites have a much shorter season. The cost of managing, maintaining and heating UK sites is substantially greater over the annual period than it is in Europe. Even so off peak season the club sites still offer attractive rates. But the clubs like it or not do provide a wider support to the caravan, motor home and camping community. Nothing comes for free hence their commercial enterprises to support members and hopefully route profits back into the club endeavours. They are more than just purveyors of pitches.
CC sites could easily double their density without ‘being too close together’ which seems to be a rather curious fear of British campers. That might also engender some atmosphere on their sites rather than self contained isolation as the curtain twitchers look suspiciously at anyone parking near them - let alone children!
They are expensive, very hard to book off the cuff, and have little more than a toilet block as ‘facilities’. They may portray themselves as up market, but they really aren't - with the constant noise of the little orange tractors waging a relentless war on the grass.
And the cost argument? A couple of staff vs a dozen or so? Perhaps if the two clubs came into the 20th, let alone the 21st century and offered sone value added facilities such as bars and restaurants, they would actually be able to run the sites much more cheaply.