Parkdean Resorts, the UK’s largest holiday park operator, is ending the season on a high following another successful year of record investment, busy parks, and outstanding customer feedback scores.

Speaking recently to Propel Hospitality, CEO Steve Richards outlined the continued strong demand for UK staycations this year, with many of the business’ 66 award-winning parks at full capacity from Easter right through to the recent October half term period. And with the UK gripped by economic uncertainty, Steve expects bookings to remain strong in 2023 as consumers prioritise trusted operators who can deliver value for money experiences.

Biggest ever investment programme

As part of its biggest ever investment programme, Parkdean Resorts spent £140 million this year to further improve the guest experience at its parks, with new accommodation, new and upgraded activities and facilities, and the installation of park-wide Wi-Fi capability. This investment, and a continued commitment to customer service, resulted in the business this week winning three gold awards at the British Travel Awards; Best Company for UK Family Holidays, Best Company for UK Parks and Lodges Holidays, and Best Company for UK Breaks Holidays, continuing a long tradition of success at the ceremony, where the company has won at least one British Travel Award every year since 2010.

The awards reflect the exceptional year-to-date customer feedback scores that the business has recorded, of 4.4/5 on TripAdvisor, 4.3/5 on Facebook and 4.0/5 on Google, while 82.3% of holidaymakers who placed reviews said they would recommend Parkdean Resorts.

Challenges for the hospitality industry

However, despite this success, Steve, who is also Chairman of UKHospitality, has warned that the business is not immune to the challenges faced by the wider sector, with current inflationary pressures proving difficult to navigate for businesses with high energy, gas and electric operational usage. Recruitment continues to be an ongoing issue and employing young people in the sector is also proving to be a challenge for the hospitality industry. To encourage more people into the sector and to help them see the benefits of working in hospitality, Parkdean Resorts has recently lent its support to Hospitality Rising, a new campaign aimed at tackling the industry’s staffing crisis.

Investing in the customer experience

Steve Richards, CEO, Parkdean Resorts, said: “We’ve had another fantastic year and we’re ending the season on a real high, with outstanding customer feedback scores and high demand at our parks. Our people work incredibly hard and these results are testament to their efforts. We’re committed to providing great value for money for our guests, and we’re thrilled that holidaymakers are enjoying all that our parks have to offer. By investing in the customer experience, our guests can continue to make lasting memories with their families next year and beyond, and we’re dedicated to becoming a digitised business to streamline the experience for our customers and to make everything as simple as possible for them.

“The sector as a whole is facing huge challenges at the moment, in terms of recruitment and inflation. Given the current economic climate, we expect consumers to begin planning holidays for the new year sooner than ever before, prioritising ‘value for money’ and cost-effective deals to make their money go further without compromising on quality. We expect the UK will likely remain a popular holiday choice and we’re therefore hopeful the demand for staycations will remain high into the new year. Another focus for us in 2023 is to drive recruitment – we hire thousands of people every year, and we want to encourage those who may not have considered a career in hospitality to give it a go, because the prospects are outstanding. Staff development and training is a key focus for the business, and a career in hospitality can be really rewarding with quick progression.”

Award winners

In further awards success, Parkdean Resorts was recently crowned winners of the Most Advanced Automated Campaign and Most Effective Cross-Channel Campaign at the Dotties Marketing Excellence Awards, while the business picked up three awards – Contact Centre of the Year (under 250 seats), Customer Service Star, and People Partner of the Year, at the North East Contact Centre Awards.

In addition to the impressive customer feedback scores, this year, twenty Parkdean Resorts holiday parks were awarded the prestigious Tripadvisor 2022 Travellers’ Choice Award, building on the success of the nine parks that were awarded the same accolade in 2021. Furthermore, the most recent round of Visit England Quality Assessment and Star Ratings saw one new 5 Star park, and three new 4 Star parks, taking Parkdean Resorts’ overall tally to six parks with the maximum 5 Star rating, and 35 parks with 4 Stars, while in the Welsh equivalent, Ty Mawr Holiday Park jumped from 3 Stars to 5 Stars.