Hoseasons parent Wyndham Worldwide has unveiled plans to roll out an upmarket family holiday brand Landal GreenParks in the UK.
Holland-based Landal GreenParks has 85 parks across Europe and is now offering its first two in the UK – Landal Darwin Forest, on the edge of the Peak District National Park and Landal Kielder Waterside, on the edge of Northumberland National Park. The company plans to have up to 15 parks in the UK by 2020-2025.
A significant marketing campaign costing more than six figures is planned to advertise the ‘high-end’ brand in the UK.
Landal is being launched in the UK with help from sister brand Hoseasons and will be based out of Hoseasons’ UK head office in Lowestoft.
Three Hoseasons staff have become dedicated Landal employees to develop and market the brand, which also has dedicated call centre staff to take bookings in the UK office.
UK managing director Simon Altham said that the Landal concept was very different to the Centre Parcs experience, with holidaymakers encouraged to leave the park to explore the local area rather than being urged to stay on site for the entire short break.
He added: “I don’t think it’s rivalling Centre Parcs, it’s for a very different type of customer. Landal encourages guests to embrace the local area. They will serve local food in the restaurants and shop and work closely with local visitor attractions to make the most of the local area. There are lots of on-site and off-site activities.”
Altham said Landal was similar to a “hotel franchise model” but based on parks that are privately owned.
He said: “Landal has always had its sights set on the UK and we have been working to help them launch here. The plan is to grow the Landal footprint in the UK.”
The new brand will be sold direct online through landal.co.uk and through travel agents via the Hoseasons’ website and call centre.
Both Landal’s new UK parks were previously Hoseasons parks but have been redesigned and had new units added to fit the new branding.
Every member of staff at the parks has been trained to Landal’s ‘hostmanship’ standard of customer service. Each park has around 100 lodges rated standard, premium and VIP, as well as facilities such as a restaurant, bar and swimming pool and local experts at each site.
For new parks to become Landal parks, they must have a Reevoo rating of nine, based on the customer review scoring system. A further two parks are expected to come under the Landal brand by the end of the year and the company is in talks with investors about building further parks across the UK.
Landal currently takes 2.8 million people on holiday every year and UK managing director Simon Altham is hopeful it will attract new customers in the UK, who do not currently book Hoseasons. Around 85% of customers this year for Landal in the UK are expected to be domestic clients, with the rest likely to come from Europe.
Landal GreenParks chief executive, Thomas Heerkens, said: “Hoseasons’ trusted reputation in the trade makes them the perfect partner for this collaboration and we are very much looking forward to working together to give UK customers greater choice.
“More than two million guests already enjoy everything a Landal GreenParks has to offer across Europe and we hope guests in the UK – our ninth territory – do exactly the same.”