What is a holiday park?

A holiday park is a site licensed to hold caravans, lodges, tents or glamping units used for holidays, run as a trading business that earns from pitch fees, holiday-home sales and on-site trade rather than from a single rent. It spans static caravan parks, touring and camping parks, lodge parks and glamping sites, and at the larger end mixes several of these on one site with a clubhouse, shop and other facilities. A park sits closer to a hotel or leisure business than to a buy to let on the spectrum of property income.

This guide explains what counts as a holiday park, the main types, how pitch fees, site fees and holiday-home sales drive park income, and how parks are valued and financed as trading businesses. We arrange holiday park and leisure-business finance as a broker and introducer. We are not a lender, and this is general information rather than investment, tax or legal advice.

What exactly counts as a holiday park?

The defining feature of a holiday park is that it is a licensed site holding holiday accommodation, run commercially. A caravan site licence from the local authority, sitting alongside planning permission, permits the park to hold a set number and type of units, sited in particular places, for a permitted use and often within a defined open season. The accommodation can be static caravans (holiday homes owned by customers and kept on a pitch), touring caravans and tents brought by visitors, fixed lodges, or glamping units such as pods, safari tents or shepherd's huts.

The terms holiday park, caravan park and leisure park overlap heavily. A coastal site of owned static caravans is usually called a holiday park or caravan park; a site of fixed timber lodges a lodge park; a field of pods or safari tents a glamping site. What they share, and what separates a park from a single holiday let, is that the income comes from many pitches and several revenue lines on a licensed, managed site, which is what makes a park a trading business financed on its earnings rather than a property financed on a loan to value.

How pitch fees and site fees drive income

On most static holiday-home parks the largest recurring income is the annual pitch fee, sometimes called a site fee, paid by each holiday-home owner for the right to keep their caravan or lodge on its pitch. The pitch fee is typically billed annually and reviewed each year, and because the base of owners is relatively stable it provides a durable, recurring income stream that a buyer and a lender value highly. Alongside the pitch fee, owners usually pay service charges or recharges for utilities, grounds maintenance and rates, which cover the cost of running the site.

Touring and camping parks earn differently, charging nightly or weekly pitch fees to visitors who bring their own caravan, motorhome or tent, which is more seasonal and occupancy-driven but still recurring across the season. Glamping units, where the park owns the accommodation, earn nightly rates more like a holiday let. The mix of recurring pitch-fee income and more variable touring or glamping income shapes a park's risk profile: a park with a large, stable base of fee-paying static owners has a more durable income than one reliant on filling touring pitches week by week.

How holiday-home sales drive park income

The second major income line on many static parks is the margin on selling holiday homes. A park buys new static caravans and lodges from manufacturers and sells them, sited on a pitch, to customers, who then pay the annual pitch fee. The difference between what the park pays for a unit and what it sells it for, after siting and connection costs, can be the single largest profit line on a developing park, which is why caravan sales are central to how many parks make money rather than an afterthought.

Sales income behaves differently from pitch fees, though, and that difference matters to buyers and lenders. It depends on continuing to find customers, on consumer confidence, and on having pitches available to fill, so it is more cyclical than recurring fees and can run out once a park has sold its development pitches. A park whose profit rests heavily on sales has a different forward profile, and a different risk, from one underpinned by recurring fees. Assessing a park therefore means understanding how much of the EBITDA is durable recurring income and how much is cyclical sales margin. Our holiday park yields and EBITDA guide covers this distinction.

The main types of holiday park

There are several models, with very different capital, income and operating profiles. Static caravan parks hold customer-owned holiday homes on annual pitch fees, with sales margin on new units, and are the largest part of the sector. Touring and camping parks charge visitors nightly or weekly pitch fees, with lower capital cost but more seasonal, occupancy-driven income. Lodge parks hold larger, higher-specification timber lodges, commanding higher pitch fees and sale values and often a longer season. Glamping sites offer park-owned pods, safari tents or huts let nightly, blending low entry cost with hospitality-style operation.

Many parks combine these on one site, a static park with a touring field and a few glamping units, plus a clubhouse, shop or food and drink, which diversifies the income. The type and mix shape both the value and the finance: a static park is valued on its recurring fees and sales, a touring park on its seasonal occupancy, a lodge or glamping development partly on its build cost and end value. Our static vs lodge vs glamping guide compares the models in detail.

How are holiday parks valued and financed?

Because a park is a trading business, it is valued on its earnings, the sustainable EBITDA or adjusted operating profit, with a multiple reflecting the tenure, licence, location and income quality, cross-checked against the value of the land and assets. This is fundamentally different from a residential loan to value: two parks with the same land area can be worth very different amounts depending on their earnings, their season and the durability of their pitch-fee base. Savills' Holiday and Home Park Update 2025 reported operator profit conversion of around 29 per cent in 2024 and an average transaction value of around 34,192 pounds per pitch, useful reference points.

The finance follows the same logic. A park acquisition mortgage is sized on the park's EBITDA and the strength of the asset, typically at around 50 to 65 per cent loan to value over 15 to 25 years, with the lender checking that the earnings cover the payments under a stress test. Development of new pitches, lodges or glamping is funded with development finance against cost and end value, and fast or distressed purchases with bridging. We arrange the full range across specialist leisure and commercial lenders as a broker and introducer, matching the product to the type and stage of the park.