by Tom Leaning
The Caravan Club will now be known as the Caravan and Motorhome Club to inspire new generations to experience the adventure of travel in the great outdoors. The Club’s Director of Marketing, Harvey Alexander, explains the reasons for this evolution.
Mr Alexander confirmed: “Our community has been passionately sharing its collective knowledge of touring holidays for 110 years and we want everyone who loves the outdoors to feel welcome to join our community. Our million members are as varied as the landscapes we explore – from early risers to star gazers, walkers, wild swimmers and surfers to families or groups of friends reconnecting together away from the confines of home and work. We already offer service and facilities for whichever way our members chose to travel by caravan, motorhome or trailer tent and our new name reflects the fact that four out of ten new members are now motorhome owners. We know that members’ outfits, hobbies and interests are becoming more varied so we will be working doubly hard to reflect, support and highlight those opportunities and to open people’s eyes to the possibilities of the adventures available by caravan and motorhome.”
The announcement of the new name for the Caravan and Motorhome Club was combined with the launch of a report which revealed predictions that more than 16 million caravan, motorhome and camping trips will be made next year – the highest since 2006.
In the next five years the number of trips taken will increase by 400,000 according the Caravan and Motorhome Club Inspiring Adventure Report. The Club is also expecting the number of caravans and motorhomes in the UK to rise from 755,000 in circulation today to top more than 800,000 for the first time by 2022.
The report also identified that people are drawn to the idea of a caravan or motorhome holiday because of the freedom to do their own thing (45 per cent), the sense of adventure (38 per cent), the flexibility to change plans as they travel (28 per cent), to set an itinerary to suit their timeframes (20 per cent) to stay in really rural locations, to be close to places they love like beach or mountains and as a more affordable holiday option (19 per cent) to get closer to nature and because they just love being outdoors and waking up to fresh air (18 per cent). People also said a holiday by motorhome or caravan appealed because it made it easy to travel with groups of friends or camp in comfort at festivals (8 per cent) or to follow sporting passions such as surfing, golfing and skiing (4 per cent).
Mr Alexander added: “Our vision is also to make our members’ experience easier so they can get on with enjoying the great outdoors and evolve to meet the needs of our members today and for future generations. Our new Caravan and Motorhome Club logo has been designed as a tribute to our original membership badge, but with intertwined letters to represent both caravan and motorhome members.”
