Every year domestic holiday giant, Hoseasons, hosts their Owner’s Conference and invites accommodation owners to attend for a day filled with informative information and business updates outlining successes of the past year.
2016 saw the biggest conference yet with over 400 delegates heading to Birmingham eager to learn from a programme full of interesting speakers. This year included Lord William Hague and Terri Scriven, Industry Head of Hospitality at Google as well as interviews with Daniel Pearce, Managing Director at trade magazine TTG and John Waterworth, CEO at Parkdean Resorts.
After heralding 2016 as the “year of the short break” MD Simon Altham opened the conference praising owners for all their hard work. He outlined the main areas of focus for 2017 and the issues both good and bad that are facing the holiday parks industry.
We heard from the Head of Product who revealed new findings from research commissioned by YouGov. The key points were that the majority of customers now regularly look at reviews when booking their next break and that the time they are willing to travel for a short break has increased to five hours. Whilst the marketing team updated attendees on the creative campaigns they have been implementing throughout the year, showcasing their work with YouTubers and how the digital world can open up new audiences to taking a Hoseasons break.
Into the afternoon we all received a motivational session from The Sumo Guy who told us we are all MAD before it was time to spruce ourselves up for the evening gala dinner and awards ceremony. The Hoseasons Diamond Awards showcase the very best of the self-catering specialists lodge and holiday parks across the UK and there was a lot of excitement in the room when it was revealed entertainment extraordinaire Vernon Kay would be handing them out. You can clearly see how happy I was to get a selfie with the man himself!
