Badwell Ash Holiday Lodges, Suffolk

The Client

This start-up luxury holiday lodge site was a hidden gem in the Suffolk countryside, until owners Tim and Jackie Thackeray asked Visionforce to put it on the map.

The Brief

The main objectives of the media relations campaign were:

• To build awareness of the brand new holiday lodge site across the target market and
• To generate rental bookings for the holiday lodges

The Campaign

Editorial about the holiday lodge site was sent out to travel and tourism journalists at all of the UK holiday and travel magazines, national newspapers and regional radio stations. In addition, the press release was accompanied by a ‘Changing Lives’ article, which highlighted the owners’ dramatic lifestyle shift from 24/7 salespeople to entrepreneurs realising a dream of developing a luxury self-catering holiday lodge site in the UK.

Interest in the news was immediate with coverage in a host of publications including The Guardian, Holiday Cottages Magazine, The Travel & Leisure Magazine, East Anglian Times, Suffolk for all Seasons, the Sunday Mercury, Lighterlife magazine and www.sixtyplussurfers.co.uk. Owner Tim Thackery was also interviewed on BBC Radio Suffolk about his dream for developing the site with wife Jackie.

Client Comment

“We’ve been inundated with enquiries and have achieved 97% occupancy as a result of Visionforce’s Press Relations campaign, with around £20,000 worth of bookings coming through in only two weeks as a direct result of press coverage. Being selected by The Guardian as one of 25 brilliant places to stay in Britain and the top 100 European holiday destinations has also been a major achievement of the campaign and has clearly established us as one of the best UK holiday sites for the discerning traveller”.

Badwell Ash Holiday Lodges owner Tim Thackeray