The trend for staycations in the great outdoors continues, buoyed by late summer sunshine and despite tighter restrictions on social gatherings, according to outdoor accommodation booking platform Pitchup.com.

Arrivals for September are now 197% up on last year, with 155,436 holidaymakers arriving this month, compared to just 52,332 who pitched up in September last year.**

With restrictions on groups of more than six gathering socially in the UK, a number of holiday rental firms are bemoaning a further blow to their bookings. Pitchup.com has been one step ahead, with longstanding restrictions on group bookings.

Founder Dan Yates says: “It’s always been the case that customers can only book one pitch at a time on Pitchup.com, and only 0.7% of Pitchup’s bookings are for more than 6 people, with the average party size more like 2.8 people. Many sites have long had a no-groups policy, and site owners can also choose to limit the size of groups booking with them: we’ve added maximum group size as one of the new ‘Covid’ features that sites can display in their listing. The onus is going to be on individuals to take responsibility for their actions and respect the restrictions.  Most site-owners already contact guests ahead of their arrival, so they will have the opportunity to remind guests of the tighter regulations at that point. And if a customer no longer wants to go away, our flexible transferable deposit policy still stands.”

Camping naturally lends itself to social distancing and on reopening earlier in the summer, site owners have already decreased capacity or rejigged layouts to ensure maximum space between pitches making it a good alternative for those unable or unwilling to stay at hotels or rented properties.

In the past two months, hundreds of new sites have joined Pitchup.com for the first time, including landed estates and county showgrounds (like the 230 acre site at the East of England Showground near Peterborough), with hundreds of acres to spread out and enjoy safely distanced breaks.

**based on bookings created by 15th September in each year