Gold, Silver, Bronze or Rosedale, Glaisdale, Farndale?

Caravan Parks around the country categorise their caravans in many ways whether by name - Bronze, Silver, Gold or numbers - 2012, 2011, 2010. It shows our guests that there are differences in the type of caravans we have available to hire.

When we moved to the park in 1999, the established names were Farndale, Rosedale and Dovedale and it would have been foolish for us to change them as we felt that we had to make gradual changes in order to retain the number of repeat guests to the park.

As the years have gone by it has been necessary to add to that range of names as the range of caravans available to hire has grown. It was important to us that we use the names of “dales” within Yorkshire and so the discussions began.

Glaisdale was the first category added. An extra category was needed to bridge the gap between our economy caravans and the new ones. Beki liked the name Glaisdale – no other reason it was chosen.

Kingsdale is the latest category to be added. It’s the new name for our 3 bedroom caravans - the ones that sleep more than others – the kings of the hire fleet but it nearly wasn’t called that...........

#Yorkshire Hour

On Wednesday evenings, from 8pm – 9pm, Tweeters from all over Yorkshire come together for #Yorkshirehour and Beki asked our followers what they thought the new name should be:

Denise Howard - Thornton le Dale, Coverdale, Madeupdale (where Mrs Victor lives)
Yorkshire Farmer - Bransdale, Dale Winton (?)
Rebecca Horner - Coverdale
Paul Raines - Emmerdale
Mrs Victor - Bransdale, Baysdale, Commondale, Danbydale, Fryupdale,  Ugglebarnby-cum-Eskdale (shame it would take over the price list!)
North York Moors - Kirkdale, Fryup Dale, Whispers Dale, Troutsdale
Susie Brindley - Emmerdale, Bilsdale
Walking Books.com - Ryedale, Troutsdale, Westerdale, Wheeldale
Debra Tyson - Sunnydale, Airedale
Craig Nattress - Ryedale, Bilsdale

There are some really great names in there - you can tell the Emmerdale 40th Birthday Live Special was on at the time! And we loved the thought of Ryedale with it being the area we belong to. However, we wanted it to be a specific name of a place that our guests can visit if they wish hence Nick coming up with Kingsdale.

And you can book stays in the Kingsdale caravan for 2013 by visiting our website.

We've had a giggle.....

Over the last few weeks we have chatted to other accommodation providers about the quirky guests we all have and some of the things they do and things we would rather they didn't do. We all decided that together we could probably write a book - possibly even a trilogy.

Lets start with the guest that unpicked every other curtain hook from every curtain in the caravan they were staying in? Why would you do that? How long must it have taken to do that? And how long did it take for us to put back!?! If you are that guest - I'd rather you just asked me to buy you a bag of curtain hooks - it would certainly have been cheaper ;)

Or are you the guest that accidently managed to pull the door off a static caravan last weekend? You must be very strong as it took two of us to hang it back on again.

Maybe you are the guest that thought washing your jeans in the toilet was a good idea - but they got stuck didn't they? They got stuck in the sewage pump that controls sewage from the whole site. Caused hours of problems for other guests and poor Damian had to sort it all out.

No two days are the same here - we can plan what we are going to do for the day and then something happens to throw us off course. We love our job - we love our quirky guests and can't wait to find out what they do next!

Are the awards worth it?

Why have you entered so many awards?

I’ll be completely truthful with you – marketing, PR, publicity – put it however you want, at the end of the day the publicity we have received as finalists in so many awards has been priceless. Whether we are a winner of not we are allowed to use a finalist logo on all our publicity material which can make us stand out from other parks in the area.

We also get so much more from them – the learning curve has increased sharply since we started entering. Each award has its own judging process – but for each of the caravan park/self-catering awards this process has included a mystery visit and a mystery phonecall. The feedback we get from these visits has been invaluable. We see the site everyday – the mystery visits make us see it through a completely different set of eyes.

 Judges have come up with new ideas that we have been able to put into practise, they have given us advice on where modifications could be made. Extra signage is on order for our tourist information area specifically due to a comment made in the feedback report in an award application last year. Both shower blocks shown on Look North in October last year have now been completely retiled as we could see they needed brightening up.

No-one has run a course on how to run a caravan park – 12 years later we are still learning –  we can’t build new ideas sat behind a desk – we have to find new ways of learning. The only cost involved in the awards is time (plus new dress, bag and shoes) but the rewards are incalculable.

How do the Outstanding Customer Service awards differ?

We were nominated for the customer service awards by guests and they mean so much to both of us. Last year a child fell over on the park – no fault of ours I hasten to add – his parents had been drinking outside their tent so had been unable to take him to hospital. Instead Damian took them all – he waited with them at Malton hospital and when a transfer to York hospital was needed Damian stepped in to help again. He waited at York hospital with them until all x-rays were completed and then brought them back to the site. Damian didn’t do that because it’s part of his job – he did it because he is a genuinely nice guy (although when I sprained my knee back in February it was 2 days before he would take me to hospital).

Will you be entering more?

To be honest we haven’t made that decision yet. There is alot of time that goes into each entry and its knowing what to put into each entry. Obviously we have made huge improvements to the shower block this year so there is scope for an entry this year but a time will come where we can’t do that. We will just have to wait and see – if Nick enters we will have to J A younger guest has asked if he can enter the girls into an awards so we may have to hold our own.

What should I blog about?

I've read alot of advice on blogs over the last 7 days - looking for that niche - looking for that something that I can talk about that no-one else can and to be honest haven't got very far. Then I thought about the title of our blog and realised that by just writing a diary and by letting people know what happened this week I can give my account of whether it really is a dream job.

Working for yourself/family and illness aren't two things that can go together so despite this steaming cold that I, and everyone I know has, I've battled through the week sorting through accounts, bookings and social media updates. Has it been a dream job this week? Yes and no - I've not taken any time off work, I've sat behind my desk in my pjs and no-one has known - we've still taken lots of bookings but on the other hand I've not had the time off that maybe I could have had if I was working for someone else.

Feeling a little more human this morning, I've spent the morning updating the facebook sites for Jasmine and Crows Nest. So often we don't take full advantage of having the three parks in our marketing efforts so I've made sure that photos of Jasmine and Robin Hood appear on Crows Nest's facebook page and vice versa. If a guest has enjoyed their stay at one of our parks they are (hopefully) more likely to look at staying at one of the others.

If you follow us on facebook - any of us - what do you want to see on there? Why do you read my blog? What tweets do you like reading? I really want to extend the communication between ourselves and our guests/potential guests - stats show that people are reading our blogs and browsing our website as a result - how can I build on that? Comment below, email or tweet with your opinions and help me make the best of our blog.

Scoial Media/PR Workshop

Scoial Media/PR Workshops always leave my head in a spin and yesterday's was no different. Thanks to Denise Howard from Welcome Training, Carol Arthur from Northern Lights PR and Visit York my head is filled with so many new ideas about how we could promote the business.

The event, attended by finalists of the Visit York awards, begain with an interesting talk on PR and how to successfully get your story into the public eye.

On the back of last year's sibling rivalry story, Denise and I spoke about the fantastic media coverage Nick and I got from last year's White Rose awards. People remember the Radio York and BBC Look North items - they don't seem to mind that neither of us won the actual award nor do they know who actually did - but they remember our "fights" and the fun we had.

Denise and Carol spoke at length about the importance of having professional photos taken and I didn't like to mention that our Dad took the photo of Nick and I whilst running in and out of reception sorting guests (or maybe they realised that). Our brochure will be redesigned over the next few months so maybe we should call in the professionals.

Carol spoke about all the different social media sources that could be used and I'm happy to say that our Twitter and Facebook pages were used as good examples of how to do it - phew! I've just got to look a bit further into linkedin and pinterest so watch this space!

I've just got to find a way of keeping up with it all now as, in its own way, all social media tools work for us:

Our facebook site is a great way of keeping regular/previous guests in touch with what we are doing and discounts can be offered but we have to find a way of reaching new/potential guests.

Twitter is a fab way of keeping in touch with people that work in our industry and I've met some great people through it that have helped promote the business. We've been able to share ideas of best practise so twitter has been a great learning resource.

We use foursquare to promote attractions that we have in the area - showing our guests that we are a great base to use for getting out and about in the area. We had such fun fighting over mayorships last year and hope to again this summer. Using a #family2follow we can incorporate foursquare into our tweets.

The one thing I'm not sure of is this blog - but you're reading it and hopefully whether you stay here or recommend others to stay here you will realise that we are a friendly site to use, we  are approachable and we enjoy connecting with our guests.