The Outdoorium

We are joined by Richard Coulter and John Maddy from Long Valley. Beginning their vision by establishing luxury yurt holidays in the Lake District back in 2008, they have expanded their sites and are now bringing Long Valley Campers, Long Valley Weddings and Long Valley Retreats into their brand offering.  Richard and John are keen advocates of building an environmental impact strategy into hospitality and have been accredited a Silver Green Tourism Award. Their aim is to minimise their carbon footprint and extend best practice to their customer base using a variety of management strategies and carbon accounting of the whole business. Long Valley is on a journey to Bcorp certification.

Brook Cottage Shepherd Huts is a high-end boutique glamping offering located on the glorious Llŷn Peninsula near the border of Snowdonia National Park in North Wales.  Each coming from fine art backgrounds, owners Mark and Jonathan have hand-crafted their five huts with extreme love and care. They are developing a range of bespoke holiday packages in conjunction with local artists and craftspeople and believe in working with small businesses in their local community to bring real long term lasting benefits to the area.  Brook Cottage Shepherd Huts has been awarded the AA Gold Award for Glamping, are winners of the prestigious Theo Paphitis SBS Award and have recently been given a Gold rating by Visit Wales. The business was also featured on BBC’s primetime Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr on 6th April 2022.

Matt Sims, a self-confessed motorhome nerd, is founder and MD of The Motorhome Holiday Company near Bristol, where you can hire, sell or store motorhomes.  He also runs a growing retail outlet, That Leisure Shop, publishes various industry guides and ebooks, and leads a successful podcast series of his own, The Motorhome Matt Podcast. Matt has helped thousands of consumers navigate the trail to owning, selling and using motorhomes, caravans and campervans. 

An ex-hotelier with over 25 years’ experience, Deborah is now CEO of Quality in Tourism & M Assessment Services. She has spent the last 7 years evolving a worldwide accreditation program designed to be equitable across the tourism and hospitality industry to make it simple for consumers to understand and to give them the guarantees they need to travel safely. Deborah was professionally educated at the General Managers Programme focused in Hospitality Administration/Management from Cornell University.

Jakie has over 30 years experience in the holiday industry. She spent many successful years with the holiday agency Classic Cottages as their Marketing Manager before turning her attention to developing their glamping brand, Classic Glamping, from scratch. Within this role she also offered ‘field to finish’ consultancy service to other potential glamping sites nationwide including provision of assistance with planning, build, completion and art direction of professional photoshoots. In early 2021, Jakie made the change to become Accommodation Manager at the not-for-profit Trevassack Holidays. The first of its kind in Cornwall and a leader in the UK for inclusive, accessible holidays, Trevassack Holidays was developed in a former serpentine quarry near Cury on The Lizard Peninsula. Facilities there include a community events space, Learning Centre, café, watersports provision and six state-of-the-art holiday properties that cater for a range of abilities and needs.  Jakie has since been appointed as CEO of The Children's Sailing Trust, the charity that provides the access to the onsite sailing at Trevassack and the nearby Helford River. This opens up sailing and watersports to those who might never normally get the opportunity. Year-round wild swimming, sailing, kayaking, paddleboarding and more are available for those with limited mobility or the fully able, with onsite staff also skilled in helping beginners and those with special educational needs.

David spent 25 years in the international aviation industry before exercising his entrepreneurial spirit by starting his own business, Buckled Wheel in Tipperary, Ireland, during the Coronavirus pandemic.  David's funky adventure trailer and tent hire company is now regularly featured on social media and in the press, including in The Ultimate 2021 Irish Staycation Guide from The Irish Times. Renting and selling rugged tear drop adventure trailers, Buckled Wheel is also Ireland's largest roof tent retailer from brands including Tent Box, Hero and Alu Cab. His showroom in Fethard is home to the best of camping equipment and brands including Hero Camper, Yeti, RidgeMonkey and Hofats. He has so many tales to tell about his experiences as the resident Scotsman in Tipperary.

We were delighted to sit down for a chat with Robin Barker who founded Services for Tourism.  What Robin doesn't know about tourism in the UK isn't worth knowing!  Most recently appointed as Chair of Visit Exmoor, he spearheads Services for Tourism, running the hugely successful Tourism Awards across the South West. He also provides consultancy, leads workshops and speaks regularly for tourism events focusing on destination management, marketing and excellence. He's spent time with the Saga Group, the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall and South West Tourism. He is a Fellow of Tourism Management Institute (FTMI), a spokesperson for the South West Tourism Alliance and has served on the Boards of both the Tourism Alliance and Tourism Society. Robin also received an Outstanding Contribution to Tourism Award at the South West Tourism Excellence Awards 2016/17. You can’t get much higher calibre than Robin Barker in this industry! Let's hear what he has to say ...