Bredon-Vale went from a phone and an enquiry form to one diary for every channel.

A campsite built around the view

Jacqui and Jim moved to The Heath in Norton in October 2018, after seven years of searching for the right place to build their own campsite. They replanted the old plum orchard with local and ancient varieties, put in hedging and wildlife areas with advice from the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, and built a site that looks across to Bredon Hill and the Malverns.

"We're here for the wildlife, not for the nightlife!" From Bredon-Vale's own website.

The site has nine hardstanding pitches with electric hook-up in the Paddock and 21 pitches scattered among the fruit trees in the Orchard. Four of the Orchard pitches are unique stays for guests without their own kit: two log pods, a bell tent and Nancy, the 1970s caravan they found languishing under a tree and brought back to life.

No system, just a phone and a lot of goodwill

Until CampSuite, Bredon-Vale had no booking system. Guests rang the campsite mobile, sent an email or filled in an enquiry form on the website, and Jacqui and Jim replied, checked the dates and kept track of it all themselves. Listings on booking sites meant more calendars to watch, and every booking that came in from one of them had to be blocked out everywhere else by hand.

That works when the site is quiet. It works less well on a bank holiday weekend, with a three-night minimum to apply, a log pod enquiry on the phone and a Pitchup booking arriving at the same time.

Every booking in one place

We set Bredon-Vale up with every pitch, every unique stay and their full price list, then connected Pitchup, Campsites.co.uk and Hipcamp. Availability and rates go out to all three from CampSuite, and their bookings come back into the diary with the pitch already held. When a guest books direct, the booking sites know those nights have gone.

The booking page sits inside their existing WordPress website through the CampSuite plugin, so guests check availability and book without leaving Bredon-Vale's own site. Jacqui and Jim still take calls, because the personal touch matters to them. The difference is that a phone booking goes into the same diary as everything else.