Rural Leisure: an inside look
By Dawn Mercer | 05.04.23
Towards the end of last year, we invited operators and advisors from the rural leisure sector to join us for a roundtable event – read our blog post to discover the group’s thoughts on how consumer demand for outdoor experiences isn’t going anywhere.
"Assembling a stellar group of leisure experts in a London hotel was easy – everyone was keen on the opportunity to meet in ‘real life’ once again and to reflect on an unprecedented couple of years for the rural leisure sector. "
Assembling a stellar group of leisure experts in a London hotel was easy – everyone was keen on the opportunity to meet in ‘real life’ once again and to reflect on an unprecedented couple of years for the rural leisure sector.
First-hand experience was in no short supply with the operators in the room representing over 500 million visitors a year, across countryside attractions, recreation, hotels, lodge parks, camping, glamping, play, food, and retail.
Whilst the challenges were clear – rising costs, pressure on consumer spend, the challenge of providing truly sustainable tourism – overall there was a sense of optimism.
This stemmed largely from the resilience of demand for rural leisure experiences, and reflections that despite the economic climate, liquidity in the marketplace is at a 30-year high. Doubt around construction projects due to inflation seems to be easing, with leisure transactions in 2022 more than doubling as foreign investors and private equity funds capitalised on a favourable exchange rate. The weak pound makes the UK attractive to international tourists whose numbers are slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels and makes international travel for Brits less affordable than ever, meaning spend is likely to stay closer to home in the short-term.
Despite the obvious pressure on the consumer purse, the feeling in the room was that demand for rural leisure will remain strong, but competition for spend is high. To maintain or build market share, established brands and new entrants need to look at the overall experience they provide, alongside their core product, to stand out.
A lot has been written about ‘experiential tourism’ – and the view in the room was that it was here to stay, with consumers valuing the overall experience in the short-stay sector with accommodation becoming a destination in its own right when coupled with on-site activities and experiences. This is where rural leisure has an advantage by virtue of the landscapes and associated outdoor experiences inherent in their settings.
Pricing has continued to increase which has gone some way to ease the hike in operating costs, in particular for those offering a truly unique luxury experience. However, there was caution that for more mainstream offers, peak pricing may not be far away and in fact just this week, The Telegraph asked rather bluntly – ‘When did Glamping become such a staggering waste of money?’!
We disagree with that sentiment and see some exceptional offers in this space still emerging and commanding impressive price points, but it will be interesting to see whether glamping offers for the same price as luxury hotel rooms is something that will endure. We are most certainly not writing glamping off as demand remains high and we are working on a number of exciting new offers from bespoke treehouses to landscape resort concepts.
After a couple of hours of healthy debate, the resounding consensus around the room was that landowners who do their homework, design the right product, in the right place, for the right people, will prosper.
Take a look at some of our rural leisure projects, and for a conversation about how we can help you to create or expand a visitor enterprise please get in touch: dawn.mercer@ruralsolutions.co.uk
You might also be interested in...
We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website. You can find out more about which cookies we are using on our cookie policy.