Jolly Days adds extra luxury to ‘glamping’ experience

A NEW ‘glamping’ venture on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds is enjoying a bumper first year.

Jolly Days Luxury Camping was launched in May by veteran entrepreneurs Carolyn and Christian Van Outersterp.

The camping site, which is set in beautiful woodland near Buttercrambe just outside of York, offers guests a unique camping experience.

Instead of air mattresses and sleeping bags guests sleep on futons or four poster beds and are surrounded by home comforts such as sofas, dining tables and stoves.

The locally made tents are manufactured out of Scottish canvas and feature beautiful wooden poles to complete the glamorous effect.

Mrs Van Outersterp said that business was “snowballing” and that the eco-friendly site is fully booked up over the summer.

“Customers are coming from all over the country particularly the South East and Scotland,” she said.

“But we’re also getting visitors from nearby York and Leeds and even the local villages.”

The site currently has 10 tents but the Van Outersterps have permission to set up 30 in the 200 acre estate-owned woodland.

According to Mrs Van Outersterp the idea for the ‘glamping’ site (glamorous camping) was hatched 30 years ago, but it wasn’t until the sale of the pair’s previous fireplace business, in which they still have an interest, that they pursued their ambition.

Their first challenge was finding a suitable site and it was a result of their searching that they realised all ideal locations were estate-owned.

“We were specifically looking for woodland and quickly realised that the large majority of woodland in Yorkshire is owned and managed by the big estates,” she said.

After securing a site, planning permission was obtained and the challenge of securing funding began.

The venture has a few small investors, but the majority of the money was obtained through the Government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme.

However, the process was unexpectedly lengthy meaning that five months of site readiness had to be done in seven weeks.

“We were literally finishing off 10 minutes before the first guests arrived,” recalled Mrs Van Outersterp.

“But the stress has been worth it.”

She said that both Business Link Yorkshire and Welcome to Yorkshire had been very supportive prior to and following the venture’s launch.

Plans are now afoot to expand the site and although enquiries about tent hire have been frequent Mrs Van Outersterp said she and her husband were focusing on getting the business into profit.

“We know that it has the potential to grow very quickly,” she said.