Glamping show

Pasty · Sep 26, 2016

Anyone go? We went up this weekend and it was pretty good. Some good stuff going on but one thing that struck me is how much money is involved. They all talk about 1 year payback but none of them talk about paths, car parks, lighting and all the other stuff you need to think about. Just the tent / pod / hut or whatever and the loos. £40k for a shepherd's hut made largely from softwood T&G? £10k for a yurt? £5k for a tipi? Plus you get a dodgy stove insulation that is going to kill your customers as Regulation J does not apply to mobile installations. Hmmmmmmm.

We are seriously going into this on our place but I think there is a lot of cashing in going on. Desperate farmers with more credit than imagination are going to mortgage themselves to death setting all this up and will be looking at a 12 year payback, not 12 months. By then, all the kit will be knackered, as will they be.

It's a growth market but I came away thinking you could blow half a million in an afternoon. Care must be taken.

Blue. · Sep 26, 2016

Pasty said:
Anyone go? We went up this weekend and it was pretty good. Some good stuff going on but one thing that struck me is how much money is involved. They all talk about 1 year payback but none of them talk about paths, car parks, lighting and all the other stuff you need to think about. Just the tent / pod / hut or whatever and the loos. £40k for a shepherd's hut made largely from softwood T&G? £10k for a yurt? £5k for a tipi? Plus you get a dodgy stove insulation that is going to kill your customers as Regulation J does not apply to mobile installations. Hmmmmmmm.

We are seriously going into this on our place but I think there is a lot of cashing in going on. Desperate farmers with more credit than imagination are going to mortgage themselves to death setting all this up and will be looking at a 12 year payback, not 12 months. By then, all the kit will be knackered, as will they be.

It's a growth market but I came away thinking you could blow half a million in an afternoon. Care must be taken.

Time to get the woodwork tools out,I mean how hard can it be to build a glorified cabin.

Pasty · Sep 26, 2016

eulb said:
Time to get the woodwork tools out,I mean how hard can it be to build a glorified cabin.

Not that hard. It's all pretty rustic looking and I can't see how they get to £40k.

RobFZS · Sep 26, 2016

Might aswell get an old caravan and no more nails some half logs on

Infact, i might

Kidds · Sep 26, 2016

Juggler · Sep 26, 2016

We went last year and came away with the same view as you then @Pasty so I can imagine it's even worse this year, we did Bell tent Glamping here for a couple of years and quietly walked away from it this year, the money you'd need to spend to go to the next level from the tents is breath-taking, and we decided we couldn't stay with the tents indefinitely on this windswept island we live on so for now at least it's binned.
It was a lot of work too cleaning between mostly 2 night stays, and we both work full time away from the farm, relying a lot on my Dad to meet people etc .

Good luck though, it's definitely getting very popular but it seems everyone and their dog are jumping on the bandwagon so only a matter of time before the wheels fall off. I'm sure there will always be a demand for posh camping in nice quiet locations though, done right I'm sure there's still money to be made.

Pasty · Sep 26, 2016

Juggler said:
We went last year and came away with the same view as you then @Pasty so I can imagine it's even worse this year, we did Bell tent Glamping here for a couple of years and quietly walked away from it this year, the money you'd need to spend to go to the next level from the tents is breath-taking, and we decided we couldn't stay with the tents indefinitely on this windswept island we live on so for now at least it's binned.
It was a lot of work too cleaning between mostly 2 night stays, and we both work full time away from the farm, relying a lot on my Dad to meet people etc .

Good luck though, it's definitely getting very popular but it seems everyone and their dog are jumping on the bandwagon so only a matter of time before the wheels fall off. I'm sure there will always be a demand for posh camping in nice quiet locations though, done right I'm sure there's still money to be made.

Those are exactly my thoughts / fears. It seems a bit of a bandwagon and how much money do you have to spend to stay ahead of the game if you start on the cheap? I think there is a market and a sustainable business in there somewhere but finding what it is will be tough and an awful lot of money could be spent in the meantime. At the end of the day it comes down to expectations and an ever raising bar. I'm on farm full time so can do meet and greet etc. and emergency stuff and we can sell them farm produce no doubt but the sheer numbers talked about are scary.

Juggler · Sep 26, 2016

Pasty said:
Those are exactly my thoughts / fears. It seems a bit of a bandwagon and how much money do you have to spend to stay ahead of the game if you start on the cheap? I think there is a market and a sustainable business in there somewhere but finding what it is will be tough and an awful lot of money could be spent in the meantime. At the end of the day it comes down to expectations and an ever raising bar. I'm on farm full time so can do meet and greet etc. and emergency stuff and we can sell them farm produce no doubt but the sheer numbers talked about are scary.

We had big plans for the Glamping here, 2 or 3 pods, a couple of shepherds huts... big big outlay, plus the shear workload which was much more than we anticipated, we only had two Bell tents but it was a lot of work.
When you start thinking about £100+per night it looks good on paper, but I'm not sure how long you could keep getting that with Shepherds huts if more and more come on the market, there's a woman we know that only charges £50/night for a hut, admittedly not one of the top of the range ones but we were getting £60 a night for a tent, so she had immediately put an unrealistic bottom in the market for this area.
It's a nice concept, Glamping, I can see how people fall in love with it and I'm sure the demand won't fall off the face of a cliff, it's just the costs associated with going forward that made me nervous.
We were going to give it a couple of years and see what things are like then to be honest, we've a nice spot that would be ideal for one Shepherds hut by a small lake, maybe we'll just do one and keep things simple.

Dan Powell · Sep 26, 2016

We looked at it and decided against it too. It's all about location and USP marketing. If we ever do it it will be a home made cabin of some kind. Those shepherd's huts are overpriced and becoming ubiquitous. The future is tree houses apparently. ..

JohnGalway · Sep 26, 2016

Juggler said:
It was a lot of work too cleaning between mostly 2 night stays

My sister has done B&B since the start of the 90's, one thing she's done to lessen that particular burden is to only take longer stay people, say 5 nights minimum. For which she feels she can drop the price a little compared to competitors as she's not tied up stripping beds, hoovering, washing en suites, towels, remaking beds, dusting etc each day between room occupants

Naturally, all locations will differ in being able to do this, or not.

Still Farming · Sep 27, 2016

They all look good under few years down line and rot away !

orchard · Sep 27, 2016

I think the market's almost saturated @Pasty , and being milked dry. Maybe cabins or cob huts?
We camp quite a lot (not having a farm yet, so making the most of it), and whilst a lot of places have jumped on this band waggon, there seems to be a lack of good, minimal facilities, tent camps available. Maybe have a look at
http://www.nearlywildcamping.org/
And see whether that's suitable. Outlay would be minimal (compost toilet and maybe water source), with little to no disruption to the farm.

Still Farming · Sep 27, 2016

They move on to the next "band wagon " ?

orchard · Sep 27, 2016

Still Farming said:
They move on to the next "band wagon " ?

I'm not sure what you mean SF, sorry!

Still Farming · Sep 27, 2016

Next craze ;one after another

Pasty · Sep 27, 2016

Having got a few quotes back, I think there is an element of gravy train going on. OK, charge £10k for a toilet / shower unit but £700 to ship it within the UK? That's insane. It's the size of 2 pallets.

I think there is money in this still and probably always will be but not sure it's worth getting into debt over.

willy · Oct 5, 2016

Yes I went with my wife and all the views posted so far were our thoughts. In fact I think customers are already getting fed up of overpriced camping as well. Need to think of the next thing

suffolksmallholder · Oct 6, 2016

My plot is just evolving slowly. You can't rush a good hedge or fruit trees anyway. I'm not chasing money as I want things to be right first time and I think if you only chase money you'll not enjoy the 'whole'. Others may disagree but so be it. We enjoy the summer family gatherings and cooking vast amounts of paella on our old Massey combine wheel!
I still have to build a loo, shower & wash-up area so can't start charging yet.
@Pasty. Wishing you well in your endeavours!

Danllan · Oct 7, 2016

We're thinking of allowing a campsite from next year, but that's the point, it will just be one. We've a field with a cracking view and an unusually level plot at the top, easy access and we have shower / toilet block close to it already, so not a lot for us to do other than run some sheep through the field to keep the grass down keep the toilet and shower clean. It'll just be for a bit of pocket money so we will only ever have one family / group at a time. Nice views, exclusive, free firewood and clean toilets, surely they'll go for that, but... what will they pay?

Juggler · Oct 7, 2016

Danllan said:
We're thinking of allowing a campsite from next year, but that's the point, it will just be one. We've a field with a cracking view and an unusually level plot at the top, easy access and we have shower / toilet block close to it already, so not a lot for us to do other than run some sheep through the field to keep the grass down keep the toilet and shower clean. It'll just be for a bit of pocket money so we will only ever have one family / group at a time. Nice views, exclusive, free firewood and clean toilets, surely they'll go for that, but... what will they pay?

What will they be sleeping in? Yurt? Bell Tent? Shepherds hut? We were getting £60/night for a 5m Bell tent with woodburner, we could have probably got more tbh, I know of someone in Snowdonia who was charging >£100 / night for the same thing but you couldn't get that now, Shepherds huts seem to be £80 to £100 ish per night

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