How tents, tipis and yurts can elevate outdoor accommodation to the next level
Guy Cutler, founder
Fron Farm Yurts
01994 419775
www.yurtsforsaleuk.co.uk
How can yurt accommodation benefit a glampsite?
Yurts are an excellent choice for glampsites as they are beautiful to the eye and nestle easily into any landscape. Visitors feel totally relaxed on entering their yurt and enjoy stargazing through the roof wheel. They are perfect for seasonal glamping and can be taken down and stored, however for those looking to offer all year glamping, our Wooden Yurt can stay up permanently.
What is the USP of your product?
Our USP is our passion for what we do. For the last six years I have lived and breathed yurts through running an award winning glampsite and a yurt manufacturing workshop on my farm in Wales. I have first hand feedback from our yurt visitors, which has been channelled into product design, meaning we are constantly improving and making our yurts unique. It is undeniable that quality matters and our standards are high. When a customer says, “I absolutely love it”, this makes the time and effort I put into the fine detail all the more worthwhile.
My passion has taken us on a journey to produce a new Wooden Yurt, The Owl House, which gives the feel and beauty of a permanent structure but can be put up and taken down.
How can your product be customised or made bespoke?
Our yurts can be made to any size, colour, with insulation, winter covers, wood burners, windows and clear roof panels. The Wooden Yurt can be made to client specifications, adding doors, windows, floors, and en-suite bathrooms/kitchens to make it as intricate or as simple as required. We work closely with our customers to ensure their involvement with the design process every step of the way.
What options do you have for small, medium and large budgets?
For a smaller budget, our 16ft yurt, which starts at £4,100, is an excellent option as it provides a large floor space, easily sleeps a family and is a low cost way to enter the glamping market. For larger budgets there are larger units, wooden yurts and various bespoke options.
What is the estimated return on investment of your product?
Rental charges per night depend on the location and quality of a glampsite, and to give an accurate answer depends on a number of factors. It is easily possible, given the right factors, that a site can recover the cost of a structure within the first year of opening.
Please mention a glampsite that has installed your product and the results they have achieved with it
The successful site Acorn Glade, which featured in the March edition of Open Air Business, is a proud owner of two of our 16ft Bentwood yurts. Julie and Richard have created a wonderful site, which helps to enhance the natural beauty of their yurts meaning that they are hugely popular throughout the season.
Alan Wenham, founder and designer
Albion Canvas
01823 665849
www.albioncanvas.co.uk
How can tent accommodation benefit a glampsite?
Ready built, high quality, stylish and well-appointed tents will always give the edge to any business. To have luxury tents with en-suite bathrooms, individual bedrooms and kitchen facilities will give your site appeal to an aspiring demographic. Top end accommodation and facilities will always command a higher and more stable income, attracting repeat business and customer loyalty.
What is the USP of your product?
The Albion Canvas range of tents is entirely hand built, designed and manufactured in the UK, using superior materials for durable and elegant structures. Having total day to day control over the design and manufacturing process gives us the ability to offer bespoke solutions to individual requirements. Our in-house engineering department, fabric print shop and heavy fabric manufacturing unit gives us the ability to respond to a wide range of unique requirements.
How can your product be customised or made bespoke?
We offer a broad range of options from our catalogue, from wood doors to opening windows, mosquito nets, bespoke printed linings, curtains, insulating liners and even deck chairs. Even our wood burning stoves are manufactured on the premises!
What options do you have for small, medium and large budgets?
The Albion Canvas range of tents for accommodation runs from our bijou 3m diameter bell tent through to our wide Grand Tsavo at 6x12m. We also have our unique safari style marquee called the ‘Clubhouse’, available in 6, 9 and 12m widths. The largest ordered so far has been a monstrous 12x39m! Prices start from as little as £711, but the average spend is around £25,000 for a six berth safari tent with en-suite bathroom.
What is the estimated return on investment of your product?
The estimated time for a return on your investment is 12 to 18 months for our most popular model, the Twin Canopy Tsavo. Return on smaller tent investments would be much quicker.
Please mention a glampsite that has installed your product and the results achieved
2017’s Visit England “Glamping Provider of the Year” winner Dandelion Hideaway and runner up Longlands Devon are both Albion Canvas Tsavo tent owners. They have achieved enormous success financially and with their customers, providing Gold standard accommodation and experiences.
Jason Thawley, innovation and design director
Tree Tents International
01273 973937
www.treetents.co.uk
How can your products benefit a glampsite?
At Tree Tents International we’ve watched the glamping scene explode with new offerings from tents to tipis and everything in between. The skill now is finding something unique and unusual, and if you succeed you can add huge value to your glampsite. We recommend investing in options that help you stand out while utilising previously unusable space, providing excellent returns with minimal impact to your site.
What is your USP?
We are passionate about creating a product that is good for people, planet and profit. Our range of structures answers that call through totally unique design – they’ve been compared to bird’s nests, seashells and even a UFO! Attention to detail and quality in construction ensures comfort and longevity, while our passion for protecting wild places mean they are low-impact, UK made and use materials carefully selected for quality and eco-credentials.
Can your product be customised or made bespoke?
We understand that every glamping site is different, so we work with owners to customise our structures. Beginning with the base unit and most important features, owners can pick and choose from a range of upgrades such as colours and fabrics, insulation, secret trapdoors and sleeping configurations. This means they get exactly what they want and never pay for features they don’t need!
What options do you have for small, medium and large budgets?
We offer four products at different price points but all with the promise of great returns. Our flagship structure, the Tree Tent, offers a suspended tree top escape from £12,500. The Gridshell is our most down-to-earth structure; its organic design blending seamlessly with the landscape, and starts from £14,500. The Fuselage is an aeronautical inspired design that can be elevated on stilts or suspended between trees, and the Tree Wing – originally conceived for Bear Grylls – is the perfect companion to the Tree Tent, giving kids space for their own adventure. Create a premium experience through our range of upgrades or start really small with our luxury camping equipment.
What is the estimated return on investment of your product?
With wow factor in spades, the Tree Tent commands premium per night prices and delivers excellent occupancy rates. This will see a well-run unit returning a profit in 12-18 months, with a return on investment of over 500% – I know, we did a double take too!
Please mention a glampsite that has installed your product and results achieved
The Secret Campsite in Sussex was one of the first to install a Tree Tent and Gridshell. Owned by Tim Bullen, the site is a peaceful place for nature lovers and real campers. The addition of the Tree Tent and Gridshell has expanded their business by attracting a broader range of customers, providing a point of difference, allowing the option of year round letting and transforming previously unusable woodland into premium rental space. Demand followed quickly with a sold out season, helping to catapult The Secret Campsite to among the top sites in Cool Camping’s directory.
Ben Bull & Dean Burgess, owners
DB Tepees
www.dbtepees.co.uk
07731 979933
How can tipi accommodation benefit a glampsite?
How many people can say they have slept in a tipi? The chance to sleep in a tent with a wood burner, to lay back and look up at the stars is special, and something we as owners never get bored of. We love to witness the initial ‘wow’ factor people get when the tipi is up and ready to be used; it always makes us smile!
What is the USP of your product?
We believe a tipi brings out the child in all of us. No matter how old you are, you are drawn to tipis for the simple reason; they are stunning to look and make you wonder, ‘What are they like inside?’. A night in a Tipi is unique in itself; what other structure allows you to have a wood burner in the centre and be able to look up to the stars in the sky?
How can your product be customised or made bespoke?
The benefit of a tipi is there are no centre poles like a bell tent. This allows us to use all the space and not have to work around a centre prop. For wedding couples we install an oak framed double bed, with candles, rugs and ivy up the poles. For stag do’s we install beer fridges, iPod music docks and simple bedding like camp beds and sleeping bags. A tipi can be customised based on client’s ideas and budget.
What options do you have for small, medium and large budgets?
Our tipi hire business offers various options. For small budgets we supply the tipi only. For medium budgets we supply camp beds, lights, throws and cushions. For larger budgets we supply camp beds, sleeping bags, throws, cushions, pillows, rugs, lights, candles, iPod docks and power.
What is the estimated return on investment of your product?
It all depends on how well the tipi’s are looked after and the quality of the tipi fabric. Our tipis have lasted over five years. When you think about how many bookings you can take in this time, and the cost to hire or buy a tipi, the returns can be extremely good and very rewarding.
Please mention a glampsite that has installed your product and the results they have achieved
Our main static site is the White Dog Inn, Ewhurst Green, East Sussex. A stunning country pub overlooking the historic Bodiam Castle. During the height of summer we would have up to 12 families staying over a weekend, most of which would eat and drink in the pub. If you said the cost of the family meal with drinks was £60 a family, that’s a healthy £720 a weekend generated from the tipi camping.
Mark Scott, director
Clear Sky
0333 241 2660
www.safaritents.net
How can safari tent accommodation benefit a glampsite?
Glamping attracts a wide range of demographic groups and social economic backgrounds. To meet the varying demands of the guests, it is wise to offer a range of accommodation types such as safari tents, shepherds huts, pods and other canvas-based products.
The luxury canvas offering, whatever its form, will attract crossover guests. These guests come to glamping from two places, on the one hand there are the hotel and caravan vacationers and on the other there are the campers who want to move towards a more luxurious and comfortable experience. By providing safari tents with fully fitted facilities, a glamping site can capture both parts of the market and maximise the expected income.
What is the USP of your product?
The safari tents from Clear Sky are unique in their quality and price ratio. Our most popular units, that sleep six, were designed with the holiday market in mind. The frame and canvas structure means there are no guy lines, making them much stronger, safer and more secure. They can be left up all year round, are sealed around the edge to reduce draughts and have been tested to withstand winds well above force 11. Most important, however, is the service we offer to all our prospective and current clients. We have a very experienced operations division that has been erecting tents for over seven years together. We can design bespoke tents as well as create beautiful interiors to suit our clients’ specific dreams.
Most important is our latest announcement of wider tents. All our models now come in 5.4m widths as standard.
He can your product be customised or made bespoke?
This is an important question now with several manufacturers copying the designs we have used for nine years. To keep your site fresh, upmarket and relevant, you need to be able to create a unique offering that sets you apart from your competitors. All our tents can be altered and customised to suit our clients’ specific dreams and requirements. We can design the interiors to provide anything from a romantic getaway tent for use in the couples market through to huge tents that can sleep 32 in a dormitory configuration. The only limiting factor is our clients’ imagination.
What options do you have for small, medium and large budgets?
Our lowest entry point is our smallest Woody, which retails at £2,990. In the middle is our range of medium sized tents which range in price from £3,500, and at the top end the sky’s the limit. Our most expensive, fully furnished, luxurious tent so far was just over £31,000!
What is the estimated return on investment of your product?
The ROI is expected to be within the first season for most tents, but much depends on the marketing channels being opened well before the tents are available to stay in. In addition, the repeat rate will make a huge difference to the time scales for full repayment of the capital outlay, and is often an aspect of running a glampsite that owners leave far too much to luck.
Please mention a glampsite that has installed your product and the results they have achieved
Aller Farm was once a Feather Down Farm site, but Emma and Nigel decided that they would rather run their own tents and maximise the income from their labours. They ordered three mid-sized tents. After opening they have been fully booked through the peak periods and have seen a significant level of mid-week bookings coming through from a wide range of sources. More recently the addition of a wood fired hot tub has led to a significant increase in enquires and bookings. Glamping has allowed the family to earn additional income for the farm, which has taken some pressure off the dairy operation.
