Holiday parks maintaining positive attitude

Holiday parks maintaining positive attitude

Holiday park owners aren’t letting winter temperatures cool their enthusiasm.

Meeting for its annual conference in Blenheim this week (23-26 June), the holiday park sector is living up to the event’s theme: ‘Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference’. The Holiday Parks Business Confidence Monitor for May/June 2014 shows confidence levels are at +70, indicating the 70% of respondents are currently more optimistic than pessimistic.

The Holiday Parks Business Confidence Monitor, developed and managed by Angus & Associates*, surveys the Holiday Parks Association New Zealand’s (HAPNZ) 300 members.

HAPNZ Chief Executive Fergus Brown says the May/June result is an improvement of 25 points on the same time last year, and is around the same level as going into the 2013-14 summer holiday period.

“For most holiday parks, this is a quiet time of year, so it’s great to see that members are feeling so optimistic. This reflects the healthy international visitor numbers we have seen into New Zealand through this period. The relatively mild start to winter may also have encouraged domestic travellers to get out for a break,” he says.

Demand this month compared to the same month last year decreased to +34 (down from +60 in April/May). 52% of HAPNZ members completing the monitor thought demand had increased compared to the same month last year, while 18% believed it had decreased and 29% saw no change.

Demand for the coming month compared to May/June 2013 also decreased to +15 (from +24 in April/May). 25% of survey respondents expected demand to increase, 10% expected it to decrease and 54% expected no change.

“These demand indicators suggest that confidence will remain high going into the coming month. Members feel that the appeal of their region and holiday parks in general are the biggest influencers of demand increases,” Mr Brown says.

* Angus & Associates is a premier supplier of marketing, research and strategic planning services. They are focused on delivering informed insights for a range of private and public sector clients, particularly within the tourism and leisure sectors.

* About 300 delegates are attending the 2014 Holiday Parks Conference at the Marlborough Convention Centre. The event is estimated to be worth about $500,000 to the local economy.

Key facts:

The holiday park sector provides 38% of New Zealand’s commercial accommodation capacity and 20% of actual guest nights
In the past year holiday parks provided 6,325,431 guest nights
Guest nights to holiday parks are made up of approximately 32% international visitors and 68% domestic visitors
While staying at holiday parks guests contribute $733 million in direct expenditure to the local communities
Approximately $372 million (51%) of the expenditure is contributed by domestic travellers, with the balance of $362 million (49%) by international travellers
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