A look back at 2019

Highlights of 2019

2019 has been another great year with over 40,000 visitors staying with us on a holiday in Dorset across our 5 family-run parks. Plus nearly 5,000 dogs joined their families for their holidays! Here is a run down of some of the highlights of the year and improvements we made that were well received.

Awards

• Highlands End Holiday Park won gold in the ‘Holiday Park of the Year‘ award at the Dorset Tourism Awards in October. We have now progressed to the finals of the South West Tourism Awards. We will be attending the awards at Exeter Cathedral in February 2020 to see how we finished!

• West Dorset Leisure Holidays was a runner up in the Family Business Award at the Dorset Business Awards in November.

• Our Dorset Diamond nomination cards in welcome packs were filled in by nearly 400 of you. These let us know which members of the team had provided you with exceptional customer service. We used these nomination for our team awards at our Christmas party!

New lodge

• A new lodge was added called Eype View at Highlands End Holiday Park. This is the first with views west from the park and it was one of our most popular lodges in 2019.

• We launched a brand new website for West Dorset Leisure Holidays, replacing the individual park websites, with many new features including our holiday planner, with listings for nearly 150 places, beaches, attractions and activities we recommend nearby.

Charitable donations

• Our holiday home owners raised £252 for Children in Need at one of our Holiday Home Owner events.
• Instead of sending printed Christmas cards to our holiday home owners, we sent one by email. We then donated £250 to Julia’s House Children’s Hospice.
• Our holidaymakers and holiday home owners donated a total of £7,754.10 to the Jurassic Coast Trust. This brought the total to £81,669 since 2008!
• We raised money for Save the Children with our Christmas jumper day.

Environment

• We introduced a new 2.5 mile nature trail. It covered the countryside and coast surrounding Highlands End Holiday Park, which proved very popular. In 2020 we’ll be introducing nature trails at Golden Cap Holiday Park, Graston Copse Holiday Park and Sandyholme Holiday Park.
• We were presented with an award from Litter Free Coast and Sea. This was for helping to create a greener, cleaner environment, with litter-free beaches and water.
• We began to move towards electric machinery. To date have electric strimmers, blowers, hedge cutters and a pole chainsaw – vehicles are next in 2020!
• All 5 Holiday Parks received gold in the David Bellamy Conservation Awards. We also set up a ‘Green Team‘ to continue to come up with new ideas to implement on the parks. These were primarily to help nature and wildlife, to reduce plastic waste and reduce our impact on the environment.
• We created a new dog exercise meadow at Golden Cap Holiday Park with sea views

Photography

• Highlands End Holiday Park was used by Bailey of Bristol as the location to launch their new range of Alicanto Grande Range Caravans and we got some great photos!
• Our annual Photo Competition was run again. The winning image received a voucher for £250 off a 2020 holiday.

Martin’s Bar & Restaurant

• In February 2019 we introduced a Sunday Carvery at Martin’s Bar & Restaurant, nicknamed ‘Roast on the Coast.’ This has been enjoyed by both holidaymakers and local residents and due to its success, in 2020 it will be back from 12th January. From 4th February, the Sunday Carvery will be available from the extended times of 12pm until 8pm.

• We launched our own Strawberry Pavlova Gin and we sold out! It is returning in 2020 along with our very own ale, lager and cider!

• We were awarded a Gold Taste of the West award at the first time of entering due to our use of local produce and suppliers.
• A ‘doggy menu’ was introduced with over 800 dogs enjoying a delicious treat!
• We launched a brand new website for Martin’s Bar & Restaurant, including Highlands End Leisure Club and the Little Fire Station Soft Play.