Leisuredays Insurance Notice Board

Leisuredays Insurance Notice Board
Autumn 2013
Since the end of the season is almost upon us, we’ve
filled this Notice Board with ideas on how you can
improve your business as things start to quieten
down – we’re calling it the ‘Problem Solved’ issue.
Health & Safety Checklist
Imagine if there was
a serious accident on
your park; someone
was injured or suffered
a fatal accident. Now imagine if you, the park owner,
were held liable or eventually even prosecuted. Without
the correct assessment records or health and safety
documents, this could easily happen.
Reading this
whilst planning
a trip to Lawns
or Beaulieu?
Call by Stand
2 at Lawns or
Stand 10 at
Beaulieu and
enjoy a drink on
the house.
Park Protect
To make sure it doesn’t, we teamed up with sister
company Wilby Ltd to create a simple five step checklist:
1. Health & Safety Policy
Make sure this includes a policy statement signed by
the most senior manager responsible for health and
safety. This should be reviewed and redated annually.
Wi-Fi ...it’s the future!
Wi-Fi (wireless internet technology) access is everywhere these days;
phones, tablets, laptops – you name it! There’s now even a level of
‘Wi-Fi expectancy’ from consumers in the leisure industry which can
influence their choice of accommodation. Because of this, Wi-Fi is
proving very popular on leisure parks, and for owners like you, the
benefits of offering Wi-Fi connectivity are endless.
2. Risk Assessments
It is compulsory to assess risks in the workplace; make
employees aware of the significant findings and review
at least once every year.
3. Training Records
All your employees should receive the necessary
training so that they can carry out their jobs safely.
Remember to record training and have a policy for
when refresher training is to be carried out.
Richard Summer from Clarity Wireless explains:
“Making internet access available ensures you don’t lose
business to a local competitor with Wi-Fi installed. Once
onsite, a Wi-Fi service may lead to customers utilising
more of your facilities while they catch up with the latest
online content. If you charge for time online, you have an instant
revenue stream, making your investment good value for money.”
4. Inspection Records
“There are many different types of network available and park
owners should consider whether the network they’re installing is
legally compliant, is fully supported seven days a week and can also
cope with the increased demand from mobile devices.
Record the condition of public areas, cleanliness of
showers and toilets, condition of machinery and
vehicles, etc. Ensure inspection records are signed and
dated and appoint someone to check them regularly. 5. Competent Advice
“One of the biggest changes we’ve seen in the market recently is
the number of devices accessing Wi-Fi networks. Now more than
ever, park owners need to ensure that user browsing experience is
enhanced by installing the right systems for their customers.”
Employers must have competent advice so they can run
their business in a legally compliant manner. Although
ideally provided from within the business, appointing
external consultants is a cost effective alternative.
Consumer demand for Wi-Fi has never been higher, so now’s
the time to consider investing in a wireless network. Visit
www.claritywireless.co.uk for more information.
For more information on Wilby’s Park Protect
commercial insurance policy or how they can help
with your park’s Health & Safety call 01422 358 525.
Helen
Ross
Gareth
Chris
Alan
The Leisuredays Development Team
Paul
Exclusive Interview: Peter White, Willerby Holiday Homes
We recently sat down with Peter White,
Sales & Marketing Director at Willerby,
for an insight into what he thinks 2014
will have in store.
In your eyes, what does a future
holiday home look like?
models exhibited, from over 20 model ranges – ensuring there’s
something to suit all tastes and budgets. A personal favourite
has to be the all new and innovative ‘Skyline’ holiday home apartment living designed to be configured by the owner to
reflect their own lifestyle.
As always, Willerby is working hard on
Peter White
the next generation of holiday home
and lodge products. Over the past few
years we’ve invested heavily in creating a full conceptual design
team, whose role is to develop new ideas in tandem with
our market-leading research and development department,
supported by consumer research. The immediate horizon
sees interior design more closely mirroring current high street
trends and increased focus on the more technical aspects of
construction and life time performance and running costs.
Exclusive styling in the lounge of the Cameo
What should we expect from Willerby’s 2014 range?
In addition to exciting new ranges customers will see further
strengthening of our Willerby, BK Bluebird and Lodge collections,
all benefitting from improved interior design, better ergonomics
and higher levels of content and fixtures. Whether it be a full redesign or model re-fresh, we take
direct trade
customer and
consumer
feedback,
interpret
requirements
and integrate
the findings into
our new product
development
process.
shire lodge
Willerby’s stunning New Hamp
Are there any special new features to look out for?
We have three brand new exclusive models launching at Lawns,
all of which have innovative layouts, contemporary design and
high street interior styling. They will be showcased alongside
the highly successful Cameo Holiday Home range and the
stunning New Hampshire lodge, both of which were launched
in time for full 2014 availability. In total there will be around 30
See
Leisuredays
at...
range
What has been your most popular model this year?
2013 has been the year of the Avonmore and the Rio. There
has also been major success with the Salsa ‘Eco’, produced
exclusively in conjunction with Bourne/Haven. Market demand
has driven great value models that have a high content feel, with
practical features, good build quality and robustness as essential
factors.
Is there anything new on
the horizon for Willerby
in 2014?
Post Lawns, we have some very exciting new product
development plans including focus on products for release at
the January/February shows ahead of park opening. The teams
are already hard at work developing new concepts and sourcing
innovative solutions in order to keep Willerby further developing
its brands as the market-leader and hopefully the number one
choice for the consumer.
Visit www.willerby.com
for further information...
Leisuredays’ flood
consultant Laurence
Waterhouse at work
on a park
Is your park safe
from flooding?
Lawns
t
10-12th Sep
Stand 2
See
Leisuredays
at...
Beaulieu
26th Sept
Stand 10
The weather has been good to us over the last few
months (compared to last year!) but we all know
that with glorious summer sunshine comes the risk of autumn flash flooding. To keep premiums
competitive and flood losses to a minimum, we employed flood consultant Laurence Waterhouse
several years ago to assist Leisuredays parks.
If your park is in a flood risk area, now’s the time to act and help to protect your customers, staff
and business as a whole. The Environment Agency website (www.environment-agency.gov.uk) is
a great place to start, with regular updates on flood warnings and advice on creating a flood plan.
It’s a tent, we promise!
What do you think of when you hear the
word ‘tent’? Damp, cold, uncomfortable?
Thankfully the folks at Hay Safari Tents
have been working hard to rectify this.
They’ve created a tent like no other;
one that they hope will ‘re-define public
perception’ and provide a luxurious
alternative to your standard quick-pitch.
The Hay Safari Tent boasts two bedrooms,
open plan living space, fully integrated kitchen,
toilet and shower, outside decking area and
is connected to the mains! Available to use all
year round, boosting park income, it has already
become a permanent fixture on many parks in
the UK. Visit www.haysafaritents.co.uk
for more info.
Over to you...
What do you consider the main
issues and challenges currently
affecting the leisure industry?
Tracey Coulson, The Elms
As owners of a residential
park homes park, we have
over recent months been busy
coming to terms with new legislation the Mobile Homes Act 2013. We fully
embrace this new legislation in terms
of its intention to remove bad practice
from the industry, notably that from the
‘rogue’ minority that have sadly caused a great deal of misery
for some residents. I feel that it has given us the opportunity to
re-connect with our residents. We have always had an open door
policy but over the past few weeks we have spent many more
hours talking with residents and have held seminars to help them
understand what has taken place, how it affects them, and why
the changes have been made. I honestly feel that this legislation
has brought us together as home owners and park owner. Initially
there was some scepticism and fear but that has all but gone
now and thankfully we are getting into the swing of things and
have had our first sale take place under the new regime which all
ran very smoothly.
Opening eyes to the possibility of park living has always been
an issue. Not everyone appreciates what living on a park can
offer. The negative press over the past few months in connection
with the new legislation has sadly focused more on dramatic
headlines and less on providing a fully investigated story - which
hasn’t helped at all. My family take the mission of spreading the
news of how great park living can be seriously and are passionate
about our business. We will continue to expand our range of
events for the benefit of our residents and show that we are park
owners who care about the environment our residents live in.
Red Tape is always an issue for businesses and it’s true that we
have to do far more record keeping and form filling than our
parents who established the business had to. We would love to
have less of it to do and more time to be out on our park! The downfall in the economy has had a big impact on our
business but we’re definitely seeing signs of improvement in
sales, helped by our involvement with Silverbridge who offer a
‘part exchange’ service to prospective residents that have been
stuck on the housing market for too long. Understanding the market and working that to our advantage is
a constant task. We know from past experience that we cannot
take our eye off the ball and we need to be making the most
of the online market which we have seen grown enormously in
recent years. I will however, never fully understand SEO and I’m
not sure I ever want to!
[Tim’s top tips on the back page should help!]
John Bunn, Bunn Leisure
Poor public perception of
what a modern caravan
holiday home is really like.
Many people’s image is 30 years out of
date! The industry needs to do more
to broaden its market to those who
still believe a caravan to be small and
uncomfortable, with showers and toilet
facilities detached from the unit!
Another concern is financial constraints, as a result of the
banking industry problems, making financing very difficult
indeed for the average customer. Little of this has anything to
do with the past behaviour of customers, but rather the banks
themselves and their staff.
Finally, well managed and prepared businesses have done well
during the hard times experienced since 2008 and are now
being rewarded for their investment. I foresee much welcomed
consolidation within the industry in the
next few years which will raise the bar!
PART 1
Part 2 to follow
in next issue
SEO Made Easy
Tim Holmes, Leisuredays’ Head of Web Development,
shares his SEO top tips to drive traffic to your website
In recent months SEO as a practice has
undergone significant changes. Methods that
were once wide spread have faced severe
scrutiny and in many cases caused market
leading websites to disappear from Google’s
search engine result pages (SERPS).
1. Don’t call it SEO anymore!
SEO is not the same game as it once was. In the past SEO was all about on page
content and optimising it for the search engines, but today it’s about the end
user and how they perceive a site and its overall brand ability. Rather than call it
SEO a more appropriate term would be INBOUND MARKETING. Our landscape
is no longer all about exact keyword matching; it now incorporates social media
perception, pay for click advertising and in many cases offline brand awareness,
all aimed at driving users to our websites.
Tim Holmes, Leisuredays
Don’t get me wrong, some keyword matches for
your main terms are still very important in helping
search engines identify the theme of a page, just
do not go overboard. The title, H1 tag and first
paragraph are the most important.
3. Link Building!
2. Make content natural.
There was a time when people would go crazy
to get links, placing them here, there and
everywhere. Nowadays you need to be picky
and very particular about who you hope to link
with. It is about content relevancy and sites that
have an authoritative profile on the subject you
are targeting or are associated with. Try to avoid
forum signatures, paid for links and non human
maintained directories.
Gone are the days of worrying about keyword density and trying to place all
of your favourite keywords on a page. Google now prefers and identifies sites
which have natural and readable content aimed at the end-user/customer of
a website, not content that is aimed at search engine spiders with the explicit
intent of being high in the rankings.
There will be more top tips from Tim next time!
In the meantime follow @CaravanGuardTim on
Twitter or speak to your Business Development
Manager for more info.
Say no to administration worries!
If you have a stack of insurance
paperwork on your desk that refuses to
go away, speak to the newest member
of Leisuredays’ Business Development
team, Sam Dobson. Like the rest of the
team, Sam is here to make your insurance
administration headaches go away. She
hopes to “give park owners less stress and
more time to relax”.
Before taking on the role in Business
Support, Sam worked in Leisuredays’ HR
& Training department. She is married to
our Management Accountant, Graham
Dobson, who amongst many other
things is responsible for paying your
park’s commission! To complete Sam’s
“initiation” process, we asked her ‘What
are your Leisuredays?’...
Tell us a surprising fact about yourself.
I skipped down the yellow brick road at
famous childrens’ museum ‘Eureka!’ and
officially opened it with Prince Charles in
1992!
What is your guilty pleasure?
Galaxy chocolate
If you could be anyone for a day who
would it be?
Victoria Beckham
People say I look like...
Britney Spears
Tell us about your most memorable
holiday or ‘Leisuredays’.
That has to be my honeymoon in the
beautiful Maldives!
Not with Leisuredays yet?
Join hundreds of parks benefiting from introducing Leisuredays insurance...
01422 396 772
development@leisuredays.co.uk
leisuredays.co.uk/parkoperator
Leisuredays is a trading name of Caravan Guard Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Sam, far left
Sam with her hu
sband Graham
Dobson
and their two gi
rls, Olivia and Am
elia
Leisuredays help hundreds of parks
handle their insurance admin.
Call 01422 396 772 to find out
how we could help you.