Glamping Experts Shared Their Secrets To Creating Bespoke Pods That Blow Visitors Away
Building a glamping resort has become a great way for landowners to diversify and increase their offerings. However, with the rise of glamping resorts comes the need to stand yourself out from the ground. To be a successful glamping site, we recommend partnering with a professional and quality glamping pod manufacturer who can build an immersive experience on your land
We interviewed Jason, the Managing Director at Enchanted Creations to give his thoughts on our approach to creating bespoke glamping pods and building unique glamping resorts.
How do you come up with glamping pod designs?
The first thing we look at is the location and landscape of the site. Too often we have seen glamping operators buying an off the shelf product that has not been considered within the landscaping setting. Secondly, we would always get a brief from the client.
All our clients vary, if they have gone down the route of a bespoke unit, they want to stand out from the crowd and already have some ideas of what they would like to design, for example. They might ask for a specific shape, or a green roof to blend in with the landscape, or choose a mezzanine floor feature.
It’s a combination of working with the clients brief, good understanding of the landscape and then putting our creative juices into it bases on many years of experience and research.
What’s your process when working on your client projects?
The first step would be to ask the client to send through any mind-mapping they might have done previously, photos of the site, and markups of the site too. We will then hold a discovery call, which is usually done over video. We will talk through everything the client has sent us as well as go through their intentions, talk through the different routes they could go down. So, for example, the options we might suggest at the end of this call could be a tree design product or a bespoke product.
Once we have a better understanding of the client’s intentions, we would usually visit the site to look at the landscaping in more detail and make more suggestions that will work for the client’s needs.
How do you ensure that your bespoke glamping pod designs will ‘work’ for a site?
We would always encourage the client to undergo one of our feasibility studies, this essentially gathers all the data you need to know to work out if this business venture is realistic. The study will include the feasibility of getting planning permission and competitor analysis.
As part of this process, we will be looking closely at the price per night they can achieve relative to what their competitors might be achieving. Also, we would reference data from the wider high-end glamping industry as to what’s achievable when it comes to price per night for a more premium exclusive experience.
How do you choose great quality pod construction materials?
The material that we would select would always be quite different depending on the design, most importantly the building must be structurally sound. We also always try and source materials as locally as possible, depending on the design.
Which aspects are most important when thinking about external & internal designs?
We would consider the design from two angles; one would be the functionality and practicality of the unit and secondly, we would consider how the interior design looks and plays its part in creating the ultimate guest experience. We are very passionate about this part of the process as it’s sometimes easy for one or the other to be forgotten.
How long does it take to design and build a bespoke glamping pod?
The concept design process will take 4 to 6 weeks – subject to design resource availability. The outcome of a typical concept design is what we would consider comprehensive, this would include: Computer-Aided Designs, elevations, and floor plans which are suitable for planning purposes.
Planning applications can take anything from 8-to-12 weeks depending on the local council. Typically, we would require an 8-to-12-week lead-in period before we could start on-site on a bespoke project.
The duration where we’ll be building on site could be anywhere between 4-12 weeks depending on the complexity of the structure.
What would be your advice on choosing which glamping pods to buy for your site?
We always want them to stand out regardless. We would never offer what we would consider to be a mediocre product in the marketplace. What we will offer is something from our predesign range of products such as the Kabina which still offer customizable opportunities, or we can of course offer a completely bespoke design to them.
In this case, we would work with the client at the early stages of building their brief to illustrate our return-on-investment calculator and the feasibility process to help them make that choice of what’s right for them.
When you take on a project, what is the main goal you wish to achieve?
The reason I entered the glamping market was to help raise the bar and create something that stood out from mediocrity. I continue to see mediocrity in the marketplace & I’m enjoying educating future operators to ensure that they stand out from the crowd to create a business with longevity & where they can achieve the maximum return from their asset.
We hope you have enjoyed looking into the world of Enchanted Creations and seeing insights into how we build standout glamping resorts for landowners to thrive and prosper into a booming industry.
If you’re interested in hearing more about our process and how it can suit you, get in touch with us and share your project ideas with us.