UK "summer of love" will return, says Parks Group

With advance bookings for 2010 up by 66 percent on last year's figures, Park Holidays UK has announced a major investment in new accommodation, facilities and jobs at its 25 centres.

The group, one of Britain's largest park owners, says that even before this season had finished, holidaymakers were booking in their thousands for next year.

The figure has continued to rise throughout this autumn which itself saw visitors up 45 percent on the previous year, according to Park Holidays UK director Tony Clish.

Overall, he said, the case for a repeat of this year's "stay-cation" had been firmly made, prompting the group to announce a winter programme of new expansion and development.

Additional and upgraded caravan holiday homes and lodges will be introduced at many of the group's holiday parks in south, west and eastern England.

Park Holidays UK, said Tony, will also be investing in the leisure facilities at its parks to ensure that they continue to deliver the high quality experience which drew this year's record numbers.

The company, he added, was already recruiting extra staff to train in advance of next year's holiday season, and other new jobs at many different skill levels would be created after the turn of the year.

The decision to give the green light to ordering new accommodation units, said Tony, would be welcomed by Britain's caravan holiday home manufacturing industry, hard-hit during the recession.

"Fears that this year's home tourism boom was a one-off have been kicked firmly into touch by people voting with their feet," he commented.

"One reason for the advance bookings is that many holidaymakers who made last-minute decisions this year found that their choice was severely limited - or that their chosen park was full.

"Having now decided that a British park holiday measures up to their family's needs, they've decided to grab the first choice of dates, locations and type of accommodation," added Tony.

In fact, he said, the group was given an early indication that the UK's "summer of love" for British holiday parks wasn't just a one-off:

"Throughout the summer, we were seeing sales of caravan holiday homes and lodges to new buyers up by an average of twenty-five percent across all of our parks.

"People who choose to buy are making a long-term commitment to this country, so we knew quite quickly that we really were witnessing the renaissance of the traditional British holiday.

"The higher cost of travelling abroad may be playing a part, some of our customers said they had forgotten just how much more stress-free and relaxed it is to stay this side of the channel," said Tony.

More holiday information for this year and 2010 is available at ParkHolidaysUK.com.