Glampitect, the country’s leading glamping site design consultancy, is expanding its UK operation with an academy offering free advice to people wanting to set up a similar business.
The move follows rising demand from around Britain from people keen to know more about the process involved.
Edinburgh-based Glampitect is currently involved in over 200 projects across Britain and recently launched a Middle East operation, Glampitect UAE, in Dubai.
Since the pandemic struck last year, the firm has been inundated with enquiries about its successful growth and it reached the stage where managing director, Calum MacLeod, decided to further expand with the establishment of the Glampitect Academy.
The Academy will officially launch on Wednesday, 2 June 2021, with delegates attending one online module each week for a month as they learn more about Glampitect’s ‘conception to completion’ strategy.
All attendees are currently based in the UK, though a waiting list has been drawn up for foreign applicants with plans to host international sessions already in the pipeline.
“The pandemic has really focused minds on what folk want to do, hence the popularity of not only staycations and glamping but the designing of glamping sites,” said Mr MacLeod, who set up the business in the summer of 2019 with business partner Ali Young on the back of the success of their North Coast 500 Pods venture in Sutherland.
“The interest in what we do has been phenomenal and we set up the academy with a view to helping as many people as possible at the one time.
“A lot of people have been asking us for advice and it became a bit of a logistical challenge to answer all the calls. We therefore thought it best to set up an academy whereby we offer as much free help as we can.
“We are recognised experts and use that knowledge to create a package of information to help people.”
The modules will be split into two: one aimed at those who have land to develop and one designed for people keen to source land to build a site. Once restrictions ease further, it is planned to deliver them in person at Glampitect’s Edinburgh base.
“We will speak about our sites, how we did it, the planning, sometimes we will have a manufacturer or a finance person attending to pass on advice,” said Mr MacLeod. “We discuss websites and marketing and the feasibility of sites – will it get planning, is it going to make money?
“It’s great to be helping people start out on this road. A year from now I’d like to see 10 people having come through the academy to own their own glamping sites.
“It’s exciting how quickly the company is growing, and the academy is something which evolved as a result of that rapid growth. We always had the vision to do this but the academy is allowing us to help people on a much larger scale than we expected.”
The opening sessions are already at capacity, with 120 people scheduled to attend. Alongside the founders, helping deliver them will be Ed Calvert and Jack Liddell from Glampitect’s client relations team.
