News

12 Sep 2018

Late night bookings a growing trend for the glamping industry

Research has revealed that the majority of online camping and glamping bookings are placed after 8pm.

According to the glamping and camping website coolcamping.com, over 40% of bookings were placed between 7pm and 11pm during 2017-18, with a peak seen at 9pm.

CEO of Cool Camping, Jonathan Knight, said, “These results are no great surprise. Night time bookings reveal the reality of everyday life – that most of us are too busy during the day and are reluctant to interrupt our office working hours.”

The data, taken from Cool Camping’s booking system, Bedful, highlights the growing importance for outdoor accommodation businesses to have a complete 24-hour online presence, with a website capable of taking online bookings during ‘out of hours’ periods.

“While our data shows that bookings usually peak at around 9pm, we still have customers at one or two in the morning every night,” says Mr Knight.

“Some will be night owls who stay up late to organise their holidays and others will be international customers who are travelling to the UK from abroad.”

A further 3% of bookings were shown to have been processed between the late hours of 11pm and 5am.

The results come as Cool Camping announced new growth in year-on-year bookings, with good weather boosting the 2018 season and further growth in online bookings across the industry.

“The expectation of today’s consumers is that everything is available online,” said Cool Camping marketing manager, James Warner-Smith. “The Cool Camping website now has over three million visitors each year and in April we launched a second, luxury glamping website – glampingly.co.uk – to further tailor our presence online.”

Cool Camping’s top tips to capitalise on evening interest:

• Ensure online booking is prominent: Use an online booking system and ensure your booking button or calendar is in a prominent position on your website. Add calling hours (such as “from 9am–6pm”) next to your telephone number if applicable and prompt people to make bookings on your website outside of those hours
• Target social media for peak hours: Schedule your important social media posts and tweets outside of daily working hours (such as during lunch breaks or after 6pm) to maximise their exposure and hit customers with your message at the most relevant time
• Integrate your systems to avoid double bookings: Use a fully integrated booking system, like Bedful, to ensure third-party websites such as AirBnB, Cool Camping and Glampingly are all connected to safeguard against double bookings while you’re sleeping

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