From five years behind to five years ahead: Our conversation with Holiday Park People
How do you go from being five years behind the curve to five years ahead overnight?
That was just one of the big questions we tackled when Andy and James joined the Holiday Park People podcast recently.
Matt and Stacy hosted us for a fantastic discussion on the state of the industry and the technology driving it forward. If you missed the two-hour episode, we’ve summarised the essential insights and highlights for you below.
Watch the full conversation here:
Built for the industry, by the industry
We’ve been part of the UK holiday park scene since 1988. In that time, we’ve evolved from a niche platform into a fully cloud-based system powered by some of the world’s leading reservations technology.
Our partnership with Booking Experts (BEX) is a perfect match. It brings together our deep UK holiday home sales expertise with a property management system already proven across 13 countries. As one long-standing industry contact told Andy at a recent trade fair:
“How did you go from being five years behind to being five years ahead in technology overnight?”
That, in a nutshell, is our story.
What we talked about
1. Closing the technology gap
We had a very candid chat about the fact that the UK holiday park sector has historically lagged behind other hospitality industries. James, drawing on his time as a Business Development Director at Hoseasons, put it plainly: our industry is often 10 to 15 years behind hotels.
We talked about everything from spotty Wi-Fi to parks still using paper ledgers or Google Forms. We recently came across a park in Wales with a 10.48% occupancy rate and no online booking at all. To stay there, you had to fill in a web form and wait for a manual phone call to confirm. In 2026, that is a massive barrier to growth.
2. The Nokia 3310 problem
James used an analogy we find ourselves using more and more when we’re out meeting operators:
“The Nokia 3310 was an amazing phone. Reliable. Everyone loved it. But nobody’s using one now.”
We see legacy systems like this all the time. They were functional once, but now they look like a 3310 with a satnav duct-taped to the top and a camera bolted on the side. If your tech doesn't evolve, it eventually becomes unfit for purpose, regardless of how much you liked it ten years ago.
3. Our four pillars
We walked Matt and Stacy through exactly what we bring to the table:
- ParcVu: Modern, cloud-based owner and holiday home sales management.
- BEX PMS: A powerhouse Property Management System for bookings.
- BEX CMS: Website design built exclusively for holiday parks.
- Booking Boosters: An in-house marketing agency focused 100% on this sector.
The CMS is a bit of a hidden gem. James actually built a fully functional demo website in just three hours. It was so convincing that a play equipment company called us up asking to sell playground gear to the fictional park.
4. Direct bookings, abandonment rates, and the power of a seamless journey
We went deep on why the guest booking journey matters so much. The industry-wide cart abandonment rate sits at around 81% meaning the vast majority of potential guests who start a booking never complete it.
“I could choose a holiday and make a booking in 15 seconds on our website. That’s how smooth and quick it is.”
Our CMS is built with the same rigour as major OTAs, constantly optimising button placement, page speed, and booking flow based on real behavioural data. And crucially, we build websites exclusively for holiday parks. Not insurance brokers. Not retail. Holiday parks only.
5. Turning guests into owners
One of the most exciting moments came when Stacy described watching a demo of our combined platform for the first time:
“I kept seeing routes and avenues to identifying, highlighting, and ultimately creating yourself a pot of potential customers.”
Our system flags loyal guests who visit frequently or spend significantly, allowing parks to treat them as potential buyers.
Our colleague Marland, who was a top-tier caravan salesman for 13 years, used to manually WhatsApp every guest on arrival day to gauge interest in ownership. With our platform, that’s automated. Marland reckons he would have sold 40 homes a year instead of 30 if he’d had these tools back then.
Our key takeaways for operators
The puddle that becomes a lake
Andy put it in the starkest possible terms when talking about the cost of waiting:
“The gap now is not massive. Just bridge it. But in five years time, the gap is much, much bigger and the cost of bridging it is much, much greater.”
Switching tech feels like a leap, but right now, it’s just a puddle. If you wait five years, you’ll be swimming through a lake of mud just to catch up to competitors who are already ahead.
Treat your tech like a team member
Andy had an equally direct analogy for operators holding on to underperforming systems, one that resonates with us across the board:
“If it was a person, they’d be gone and you’d have replaced them with somebody who can do a better job. So treat your tech just like a person.”
If your software isn't performing, it’s time to have a difficult conversation with your provider, or find a new employee for the job.
The power of no
Our core product isn't bespoke for every user, and we’re proud of that. It’s what allows us to offer a 20-minute support response time. Because the product is consistent, our team knows exactly how to fix it immediately. For everything else, we have an app store with over 800 integrations (digital locks, dynamic pricing, etc.) that bolt on without messing with the core.
Real results (ROI)
Our pricing reflects the measurable growth we deliver. We focus on high-performance technology that pays for itself through increased bookings and reduced admin, and we have the real-world data from our customers to prove it:
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A boutique park took £9,000 in bookings in its first week, all online with zero admin.
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A park saw bookings jump 30% in six weeks because their new site was optimised for AI searches (ChatGPT/Gemini).
- A large group with 95% occupancy still found 12% growth within six weeks of going live.
What this means for you as an operator
Modular implementation
You don’t have to change everything at once. You can start with the PMS and a booking widget on your current site, then add the rest later. It makes the transition a lot more comfortable.
We’ll do the heavy lifting
Onboarding usually takes 8 to 10 weeks. Through our partnership with Holiday Park People, we can provide hands-on support for data migration and training. As Andy says:
“We can just come in, put our arms around you, and say, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do it for you.’”
Start early
If you’re in a contract, start looking at options 18 months before it ends. Don't leave yourself forced into a rushed decision.
Waste our time
James was very clear on this: even if you aren't switching for two years, come see us anyway.
“I want to show people the future. And I genuinely believe that what we offer is the future. So if you’re not in the market, we don’t care. Waste our time.”
We’ve been in your shoes
The reason this tech works is because our team has lived the park life. Andy spent 17 years as a GM. James has managed parks and worked at the highest levels of Hoseasons. Marland lived and breathed caravan sales.
We know what it’s like when 200 families arrive at once on a rainy Friday. We’ve dealt with the stressed parents and the crying kids. That empathy is built into every feature we create.
Our partners at Booking Experts in the Netherlands have the same ethos. Their office has "Facebook vibes," but the mission is serious. As CEO Alli says:
“If I’m not looking after my team, they ain’t looking after my customers.”
A final word
“I understand reservations, and I don’t mean bookings. I understand the hesitation about something new. But the decision is yours. We just want to get out there, show you what this can do, and help you. We get genuinely excited because it’s bloody fantastic.”
— Andy
Interested in seeing what we can do for your park?
Whether you’re currently without a system or locked into an old one, get in touch for a demo. You won’t be wasting our time. That’s a promise.