Hoseasons Group is to launch a luxury lodge holiday concept for families in 2012, managing director Geoff Cowley told the Travel Convention in Palma.
Evermore Lodge Holidays is designed to offer exclusive high quality lodge accommodation with facilities such as hot tubs, iPods, free Wi-Fi and flatscreen TVs.
The brand will launch with six developments across England, Scotland and Wales, and Cowley hopes it will attract new customers to the UK holiday lodge sector.
He said: “We see very strong potential for expanding this concept over the coming years.
“Quality time with the family is the number one priority for this audience, but they also want to explore the local environment together, rather than simply staying on location for the duration of their holiday.
“Space and privacy are also important, together with things like a gastro pub close by and outdoor activities, such as cycling and walking, on the doorstep.
“In creating Evermore our aim has been to meet all these requirements and we are confident that this will open up the luxury lodge holidays to a group of holidaymakers that we have never directly engaged with before.”
The product will be available to the trade from late October.
In terms of the market, Cowley said that customers were booking later and staying for shorter periods.
“These shorter breaks are driven by lower price points. People want to book to budget and have a more fixed idea of what they want to spend.
“And with shorter stays you need more customers.”
The company is successfully drawing higher numbers with a 50% increase in customers staying in its lodges and parks in the last five years. Expansion and investment are key to the growth, he said.
There are 25% more locations in the lodges and parks product than there were five years ago. The company’s luxury brand Autograph has 13 properties, up from four when it launched in 2008, and will add seven more next year. The Go Active range, launched in 2010, will increase to 14 from five in 2012.