Pubs urged to unlock revenue potential of camping
The domestic camping and caravan market is worth c£2.4bn per annum, but pubs aren’t grabbing a big enough slice of that market, according to outdoor accommodation provider pitchup.com.
The company currently has just 29 bookable pub sites on its books, with the overall value of bookings at pub campsites in the past 12 months standing at £303,000.
Searches for camping at pubs on the website totalled 14,000 this year.
Conversion
Founder Dan Yates said: “In rural areas especially, pubs often sit in a reasonable amount of land which may not be fully utilised. With a small amount of thought and effort it is not hard for a pub to convert the land into a profitable and popular campsite or ‘glampsite’.
“Generally publicans already own the land in most cases – why not put unused parts of it to use?”
Yates added that many companies build and deliver glamping options such as camping pods, meaning that publicans can set up with little effort.
The company has provided a guide to setting-up a campsite.
