Mobile drives Pitchup.com to be UK’s ‘top outdoor accommodation website’

Scorching summer helps platform overtake nearest rival Hoseasons Continue reading →

The scorching UK summer has enabled Pitchup.com to claim to have overtaken its nearest rival Hoseasons as the most-used outdoor accommodation website.

Figures from independent analysis site Similarweb.com reveal that Pitchup attracted more than two million monthly visits and 1.1 million unique visitors for the first time, beating Hoseasons by 4.7% in unique visitors.

A combination of the summer heatwave, uncertainty over Brexit and the fluctuating pound has led British holidaymakers to take domestic breaks in record numbers this year.

The site recorded a 39% increase year-on-year in bookings between May and July, primarily driven by mobile-generated business.

The summer performance comes on the back of it being named one of the Financial Times’ 1,000 fastest growing companies in Europe in April 2018.

Founder Dan Yates said: “When we launched back in 2009, the holiday park market was long dominated by the likes of Hoseasons.

“We had the aim to be the go-to site for outdoor accommodation and I’m delighted the trust we’ve built with consumers and site owners over the years has now seen us reach number one during the ever-important summer months.”

He added: “On-the-go bookings have been increasing consistently the last few years, but with this year’s warm weather, we’ve seen them rapidly rise.

“Smartphones accounted for 44% of our bookings during the key summer period of May through July, up 71% on the same time last year. Nothing helps promote an outdoor adventure quite like a lovely, sunny day.

“Summer is always our busy season. But this year has seen the ‘perfect storm’: great weather, excellent work by our team in attracting new easy-to-reach and eye-catching accommodation options, and improvements by our developers to make it even easier for users to find what they’re looking for, whether campsites welcoming dogs or remote cabins where you can get away from it all.

“New tools for the mobile site, such as an enhanced map-based search, are generating positive feedback from users and – more importantly for our partner campsites and holiday parks – improved conversion rates, particularly for last-minute availability as holidaymakers become more spontaneous during the sustained good weather.”