British Holiday & Home Park Association

[Barleycorn]

We're looking at starting a farm campsite. Googling I found the British Holiday & Home Park Association. Not much on their public website, but a lot of promises if you join, but at £350, not an easy decision. Has anyone joined this, is it worthwhile or just a rip-off?

 

[delilah]

https://www.farmstay.co.uk/

 

[Puff]

When you register as a holiday let, you get inundated with people trying to get you to advertise with them or join their "associations. I spent a couple of years monitoring but found that with the majority you get naff all conversions. However, you may find that you have a niche clientele so worthwhile focusing on that (mine is dogs) and then last year I signed up with one of the larger agencies, focusing on the niche and have had 60% increase year on year - that was before Covid.
In terms of associations, I'm with the Welsh national one and Carmarthenshire one. They're not profit focused so in my eyes they provide the best kudos and best bang for buck.
I would imagine the same stands for campsites. Other tip is to work your google listing - easy enough to do and get prominent without paying people to do it for you

 

[Still Farming]

When you register as a holiday let, you get inundated with people trying to get you to advertise with them or join their "associations. I spent a couple of years monitoring but found that with the majority you get naff all conversions. However, you may find that you have a niche clientele so worthwhile focusing on that (mine is dogs) and then last year I signed up with one of the larger agencies, focusing on the niche and have had 60% increase year on year - that was before Covid.
In terms of associations, I'm with the Welsh national one and Carmarthenshire one. They're not profit focused so in my eyes they provide the best kudos and best bang for buck.
I would imagine the same stands for campsites. Other tip is to work your google listing - easy enough to do and get prominent without paying people to do it for you

How do you work uour google listing?
Keep clicking on it???

 

[Puff]

Add photos regularly, fill in all the listing details, add as many segments that apply, encourage guests to leave reviews. Just checked and I'm #2 in the list that comes up

You can see the stats and I've had 850 views and come on searches 500 times in the last month. Not sure what that has meant in terms of bookings as I'm fully booked atm, though I seem to regularly get requests.

What's great is that its free to have/use and with just a little work on your part, you'll appear at the top of searches against other businesses.