What a year it has been for the so-called ”Staycation’. The credit crunch inflicted trend continues to have a tremendous effect on the caravanning industry. The Caravan Club are reporting bed nights up almost 500,000 from 15.6 million last year.
There was also a rise in the number of first-time caravanners, with a record number of new members joining at the International Caravan and Motorhome Show in October. This is a significant increase of 23% on the 2009.
Even the colder autumn months failed to dampen enthusiasm for the Great Outdoors, with large numbers taking weekend breaks in their caravan well past the summer. This is borne out by the fact that 80 Caravan Club sites will stay open until the New Year and 50 are open all-year round.
The Caravan Club’s Director of Marketing, Nick Lomas said ‘Our season has been terrific with many hundreds of thousands of happy caravanners. Looking to the future, bookings for 2010 look set to be buoyant, which is great news for the domestic tourism industry.’