A DIRECTOR'S VIEW ON HOW BUSINESS IS AT PARK HOLIDAYS UK 

In these days of economic uncertainty, it's sensible that customers take a cautious view as to the companies they deal with. At Park Holidays UK we are keen to keep customers in the picture as to how we are doing.

With the launch of our new website in January 2009, we will be adding regular updates to give a broad view of how the year goes.

Looking back over 2008 it was a very mixed picture - some parts of business had a record year, whilst in others it was an uphill battle!

We had a record year for holiday sales - up over 10% on 2007 on a like for like basis. Golden Sands and Peppermint Park joined the group in the spring - and both parks had a very successful first year. Golden Sands bookings were up around 20%, and we welcomed more new caravan holiday home owners than we had expected. We are now the largest holiday park owner in Devon, with six beautifully located parks.

The economic slowdown did effect the holiday home sales side of the business - but we did much better than the market as a whole. We found that buyers were still keen to join us, and more people were wanting to buy affordable used units rather than more expensive new ones. We also welcomed a record number of existing caravan holiday home owners who wanted to move their caravan to one of our parks - thank you for choosing us.

We are very lucky to have some fantastic employees - and they worked very hard during the year to give holiday makers and holiday home owners a good experience when they visit our parks. We get feedback in various ways, including in 2008 investing in a major piece of research amongst our holiday home owners. It was very encouraging that the results were extremely positive, with satisfaction levels well ahead of when we last did the exercise in 2006.

We have continued to invest in improving the parks - over the last few years most of the parks have seen improvements. For the new season the major projects include a new entertainment venue and swimming pool at Seawick in Essex, and an extented clubhouse at Seaview in Kent.

We have also invested in more new caravans for our holidaymakers, and introduced holiday letting at five new parks - Seaview, Alberta, Sheerness, Coghurst Hall and Solent Breezes. We think that these parks are well suited to both caravan holidays, and holiday home ownership. The pitches for the letting caravans have been carefully selected so that they will integrate well into the smooth running of the parks.

We are also doing some exclusive new developments within the parks for new holiday home owners - including  exciting new developments at Peppermint Park and Golden Sands in Devon.

We also have lots of exciting plans for entertainment in 2009. We are delighted to welcome all the X Factor 2008 finalists to our parks in 2009 - look our for news of the dates as soon as they are confirmed. One of the highlights last year was the 'Park Holidays UK's Got Talent' competition - if you are a budding X Factor winner please get involved - the finals of our event in the autumn really are something to aim at with one winner from each park going to a National Final.

So there's lots going on and everyone is busy getting ready to welcome our guests for 2009!  

What will 2009 hold? We are expecting to have another record year for holiday bookings - early indications are very positive. Last year some people left it late and we ended up just about sold out through the peak summer season - so my advice is once you know where you want to go - book it before its gone!

If web site traffic is an indicator of likely demand, it should be a very good year. We are currently running at around double last year's level even before the new website is launched.

For holiday home owners, we have tried to keep your pitch fee charges as low as possible - I am pleased to say that the feedback has been very positive and it looks like the vast majority of people are keeping their holiday homes with us - thank you for your continued custom.

For people thinking of buying a caravan holiday home this year - we have some very affordable caravans available, as well as some very exclusive holiday home and lodge developments so we have tried to offer something for everyone.

Despite the doom and gloom in the press and on TV there are lots of reasons to be optimistic for the UK holiday parks market - low mortgage costs, the exchange rate making foreign holidays more expensive, low petrol prices making travel more affordable etc

So we start the year with cautious optimism! If you are not a Park Holidays UK customer yet - we hope that 2009 is the year you decide to join us!

We look forward to welcoming customers old and new during 2009 I will let you know how the year goes.

Thanks for reading!

Tony Clish