An investment of around £15000 for a pod could be enough to see you conservatively generate £80-£100 a night depending on the season and location. A modest occupancy rate could equate to a 30-40% gross yield making a pod an excellent investment.
The actual gross and net yield would differ drastically from case to case, but you can see that there is a significant margin to factor in other costs and varying occupancy rates.
It is worth noting that the figures above are conservative, in the right location with the addition of a hot tub, it’s not uncommon to see some pods advertised in the region of £180 per night.
Considering that most budding pod owners already own the land their pod/s will sit on, they are a great way to monetise an existing asset.
How much can I charge for a pod per night?
There are three main factors to consider here:
- Season
- Location
- Pod specification and site facilities
Season is self-explanatory, during peak times (summer, school holidays, valentines, NYE etc) demand will increase, this in turn will push the rate higher.
Your location will be pretty much set, the closer you are to an area of natural beauty or tourist hotspot the more you will be able to charge, as once again the demand should (depending on the competition) be higher.
Going back to 2016 when we started building pods, a good proportion of the pods that we supplied would be a single room with no electrics or heating. They would often be installed at existing campsite locations that would already have a toilet and shower block. While there is still a place for this sort of setup, the market has evolved and expanded to a point where electrics, bathrooms and kitchens are more common than not. A modest investment for an option such as underfloor heating could help improve occupancy rates in the colder months. All these options (and more) will make your pod more desirable and therefore affect what you can charge.
Other costs
Planning
Planning is a consideration for anyone looking to start a glamping business. This is something that you could handle yourself to keep the costs low, or you could employ the services of a local planning consultant who can guide you with, not only your application, but also advise on what permissions you can apply for.
Groundworks and services
We have worked on sites where the cost for the groundworks and services have been a greater investment than the pods themselves, however, it is worth noting that this was in a remote location and involved laying winding paths and bridges over brooks, a car park and picnic facilities. It is also common to see a single pod on three solid sleepers that is located close to the services with no other infrastructure required.
Marketing
A few years ago this was very fragmented, finding a pod to stay involved browsing an array of local tourist-based websites. Now most of the big players (Airbnb, lastminute.com, etc) have gotten involved. While these sites do take a cut, they enable you to start attracting visitors from day one very easily.
Tip 1: we would recommend you starting your own website for your glamping site, even just a basic single webpage, this will help you attract direct business thus cutting out the middle man.
Tip 2: there are many websites out there that promote dog-friendly holidays and locations. As many outdoorsy people will own dogs, actively advertising that you are dog-friendly can open the door to a growing market. You will see on the graph below, the instances of users searching on Google for “dog-friendly holidays” has almost
Operating costs
Some of these costs will be much the same as any small business such as accounting. Other costs more unique to the leisure industry will include cleaning, maintenance, electricity, water etc
We hope that has given you some food for thought. If you are an existing glamping site operator and have any comments then we would love to hear from you.