Its been a little while since I had time to sit down and write, with the event of Brexit looming, and our work in conjunction with the Heartland Association in Italy there has been little time.
Europe has been thrown into disarray, for all of us with homes and businesses in the UK the event of Brexit seems somewhat plucked out of a horror movie, so we chose this moment to bring a ray of hope into the future.
We have been busy working out a new model, it’s sustainable tourism, although some things have been written about it before its largely a new field. Having worked in the Glamping industry with some of the best campsites in the UK, and after those years of using those methods for rural innovation in marginal areas in central Europe (mainly Italy) we felt its time we bring this into fruition. We have developed a model for sustainable tourism that allows us to develop a small holding together with the owners to create the perfect equilibrium of life in the country.
Working on the European mainland in rural abandoned areas, really made us reinvent glamping into this little gem. The idea is novel because it takes our experience of 15 years, having spoken and worked with over 300 (I just made the number up as it’s hard to keep track of how many campsites and private people we worked with) different enterprises, we now developed a sort of “silent engine”, a model for a small green havens in the country. The focus here is not only to create a sustainable sort of tourism for the client. The idea is to create a lifestyle business that allows one to live in the countryside with a steady flow of income, eating organically grown foods and offering local farms and obviously ones guests a point for cultural meeting, instead of having to run a glamping site that means you are running to keep your business running, we formulated the best investment ratios, the number of tents per site, and the best cultural exchange from our years of experience.
So how does this work? SIMPLY. This new model is based on allowing one to come back to nature, we have synthesised all the that is good in a glamping business, and tailored it for a small site, offering the guests an unforgettable experience, whilst offering the hosts a lifestyle that is sustainable. The model calls for the cultivation of small organic parcel of land directly on one’s site. Sure not every smallholding has that type of terrain that is suitable, but its rare one cannot grow anything, even if it’s in a polytunnel.
small scale sustainable tourism
Second this small site becomes a small hub for the local community, offering organically grown foods from neighbouring farms. In Italy having to work within the agriturismo system it is actually a law that food served must be locally sourced. We have found out it works as an amazing way to set up small havens of health and good food, allowing the site to become a small farm shop selling products that support the locals growing organic food and animal products. Now this small site is a little hub in the community, and you the potential owner a little local hero, making circular economy that supports what is important, in a sustainable way.
The next phase is opening up that special hospitality that allows people to come out of the city and enjoy your site, to live alongside you for a period. Here, to keep things ticking in the right balance we have used our experience of 15 years working with campsites, we know what business plans are likely to work, which ones are likely to end up as a headache, the idea is not to be running after the business anymore, its about letting it allow you to live that quiet life you chose to begin with. We came up with the right structures that are made either directly by us, or by a small group of selected companies we feel deliver the perfect product.
In Italy because this type of venture is new we enjoy the benefit of working with some of the best names in the business, we are acting as agents for some of those. But now we have decided to open up this program to everyone, to help others moving abroad into the mainland, either as a life choice, or because Brexit may mean being land locked in the UK, not that we think its really an eventuality but who knows, so we run this program now in other countries, focusing on southern and central Europe but not only.
Back in the UK, we want to take all those points to help focus on a new type of rural development, we have seen so many of our clients try and battle their life style with running a small business, so much so that we decided to take the Heartland Association model and introduce it in the UK too, Glamping in the UK has turned into a monster, its an enormous economy, and while it still does what it says on the can, very often the owners of glamp sites end up losing the initial spark, and the whole industry ends money orientated instead of helping people to live happily in balance, what matters here is size of site, the correct structures used, the exchange with the guests. But more than all the role the site has in the larger scale of things, in the local rural community, we see those work best as small havens of social innovation, with high end quality food farmed directly at km zero, and so each site becomes a local centre for well being, bringing health back into rural areas, supporting a good and healthy lifestyle without the constant headaches for its owners (believe me this is a constant issue) and so it takes going back to nature into every aspect of its operation. Like that we feel we can finally give Glamping as an industry back its role for saving our countryside in a sustainable way.
Working abroad as a non profit we have found a richness we never knew existed, the farmers in Italy have grown ancient wheat grains with us, made organic olive oils, we developed up our own site, learned about working with groups of volunteers and much more, now we have bundled it all up into a package we can offer new or existing sites, from business plans to gardening ideas, we have developed a network of small tent makers that can offer maintenance and support with your structures, but the best part is that we now have small stocks of ancient grains and other products we have come in contact with in Italy, this small producer of top quality foods, and believe me it really is a whole other world of taste and quality, so at this time of fractions, where the UK is thinking of tearing itself apart from Europe, we instead are building a bridge, reminding us all what is important and what is good, the richness that we all have available and how we can all use and enjoy it in a way that builds it further.
The theory of diffusion of innovation as was told to us by one of our recent volunteers maintains that new ideas are hard to bear fruit, we know that, he worked with farmers in Zambia, trying to teach them new ways to farm and commercialise, he says you will see one person take to it, and years later maybe their neighbours would follow but its not really linear.
So we guess this sort of program isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. people don’t really know what they are getting to when they set a glamping site up, people aren’t really aware of the reality of the dream of living in the countryside. This program is our extract of all that is good in sustainable tourism, and we offer it to you as a package in which you get –
- 15 years of experience tailored to your own site. So the perfect ratio of glamping structures to site running ability (so you don’t have to be employing staff).
- Our experience of structures for Hospitality, be it yurts, safari tents or cabins, we can figure out with you the best return on investment.
- Full business plan including a design in setting up your farming or gardening parcel of land to feed yourself and your guests.
- A list of social innovation ideas to make sure your site operates as a hub of local transformation, creating a circular economy.
- Being part of a network we have created of small producers and manufacturers offering amazing organic food products, and obviously glamping structure solutions.
- A selection of operating possibilities to minimise your need for a big starting investment, things like rent to buy, franchising etc, we have come up with a few possibilities to help new sites into this program.
There is obviously more, this program is a fruit of our work in promoting sustainable tourism in the mainland, especially in central Italy, with the heartland association we aim to work with new sites on the mainland, but now we are opening this program back in the UK too, because we feel it’s time we all help the Glamping industry take back a course towards sustainability as we feel it is losing its direction with a certain greed it has developed.
Contact us for more details
