Frequently Asked Questions
Suppliers
Booking questions
- Can I copy booking confirmations to another email address?
Yes - log in to your Portal and visit the "My Account" tab at the top of the page. Any email addresses in the 'bcc' box will receive a 'blind copy' of booking confirmation emails. Other recipients won't be able to see your email address.
- Can I promote late availability and special offers?
Yes - you can promote late availability via the offers section of our Bookable Listing. Online customers typically spend more and book later, so Pitchup.com is a great way to sell at the last minute. We're always on the look out for the best deals to promote to our newsletter subscribers, social media followers and to the media.
Our offers section lets you apply a percentage discount to your prices in Pitchup.com for a specified date period, and we'll highlight the offer price alongside the original price in search results in red.
This service is available only for customers with a Bookable Listing.
- Can I stop late bookings after a certain time?
Yes, in the booking section of the Manager Portal there is a setting to do this. You can choose to show zero availability within 3 to 72 hours of midnight on the arrival date.
- Can you take an additional deposit or balance upfront?
At the moment we're trying to keep things simple and only take a deposit from the customer amounting to our commission, and Payment Card Industry (PCI) rules make it difficult for us to pass card details to third parties. We're planning to enable more of the balance to be taken at the time of booking, but for the moment most of our bookable sites request the balance well before (normally 4-6 weeks) the customer's arrival, to minimise the risk of no-shows.
- How do I maintain my prices and allocation, and view Transactions?
When you upgrade to a bookable listing, we add a new 'Booking' tab to your Manager Portal where you can set up pitch types, extras, general info about your site and the surrounding area, and mostly importantly add your prices and vacancies. You're in charge of all of your information and you can add or remove allocation from the site at any time. Need to remove pitches from the site because you've nearly sold out? No problem - you can take it off the site in seconds.
You'll be able to view all bookings in a 'Transactions' tab, in date order and summarised by month.
- How do we find out about bookings?
Pitchup.com booking confirmation emails are immediately sent to the customer AND to the email address specified for your site (not the Manager's email address). Please check email regularly to ensure that last-minute bookings aren't a surprise!
We show all bookings in a 'Bookings' tab within your Manager Portal, and we automatically reduce your allocation - so you have full visibility of the remaining allocation.
You can download a spreadsheet of all your bookings over any date range, and they are also available as a live calendar feed.
A sample confirmation email is shown below.
From: <XXX@pitchup.com>
Date: XXX
Subject: Pitchup.com booking confirmation: XXX site (booking ID: YYYY)
To: XXX
Thank you for your booking
-------------------------------------
Your booking was successful on X date, X:XX p.m.
Your name: XXX
Your address: XXX
Your telephone number: XXX
Your email: XXX@XXX.com
Site information
----------------------------
Site: XXX
Address: XXX
Phone: XXX
Email: XXX@XXX.com
Location: http://www.pitchup.com/campsites/XXX
GPS: Latitude XXX; longitude XXXDirections: XXX
Your reservation details
--------------------------------
Booking ID: XXX
Pitch type: XXX
Arrival: XXX XXX 20XX
Departure: XXX XXX 20XX
Nights: X
Quantity: 1
Party: X adults, X children, X infants
Permitted arrival time: XXXAccommodation cost: £XXX
Extras
--------
Awning (£XXX)Total cost
--------------
£XXX
Pitchup.com will bill you £X now, and the remainder of £X is payable direct to the site.
Card details
---------------
Name on card: XXX
Card type: XXX
Card number: ---- ---- ---- XXXX
Expiry date: XXX
Useful information / balance payment
---------------------------------------------------
[Park payment terms, e.g. We will contact you by email for payment of your balance on any bookings. The full balance is due six weeks before arrival date, or as soon as possible if the booking is for within six weeks.]Cancellation policy
-----------------------[Park cancellation policy]
Please note that your deposit paid to Pitchup.com is non-refundable.
Terms and conditions
----------------------------
Please read the park terms and conditions below and the Pitchup.com terms and
conditions <http://www.pitchup.com/terms/>.
[Park T&Cs]
Customer service
------------------------Wishing you a pleasant stay! In case of any queries about your booking, please contact the site direct, or visit our FAQs.
Enjoy your stay!
The Team at Pitchup.com
--
Pitchup.com
Winner, Best UK Travel Information Site - 2010 Travolution Awards
Email: enquiries@pitchup.com
Phone: +44 20 8123 4450
View our FAQs at: http://www.pitchup.com/about/faq/
Blog: http://www.pitchup.com/blog
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pitchup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pitchup - How does the booking system work?
Here's how the process works for bookable sites:
- Manager specifies pitch types, allocation, prices, extras and minimum-stay rules (all changeable at any time)
- Pitchup.com displays matching accommodation and prices to the user at the top of search results
- We take the booking via a simple one-page booking form, taking our commission as a deposit, and send a confirmation email, copied to your email address. All bookings are also displayed in the "Bookings" tab across the top of your Manager Portal.
- Site collects the remaining balance from customer (on arrival or in advance). You can specify your own cancellation and payment policies - all customisable on Pitchup.com
- No further commission is due
- How flexible is your booking system? What about minimum-stay rules, fully-booked periods, extras, different tariff seasons?
We understand that pricing methods vary significantly, and that prices and tariff rules change during the season. Our system has been built to remain easy to use while handling all the common pricing methods in the sector, including:
- Varying minimum-stay requirements
- All pricing periods including nightly, short break and weekly
- Fixed and variable extras, or extras whose price varies by type of pitch
- Per-pitch and per-person charges, or a mixture of the two
- Custom adult/child/infant age definitions
- Multiple pricing periods for the same pitch type (e.g. short break and weekly charges for same arrival day)
You can also set up different pricing methods for different pitch types - for example, per-pitch pricing for static caravans and lodges, and per-person pricing for tents.
Whatever your pricing method, when a user searches Pitchup.com we calculate the exact price for the customer's party size for each site in the search results - so all the prices are there in one page. And we make sure that pricing rules like minimum stays are enforced via the search, rather than through 'notes' - so a user who's searched for a one-night break won't be able to book a period with a three-night minimum stay.
If you're fully booked for a period, no problem. Simply allocate zero pitches to us and we can concentrate on selling dates when you've got vacancies, and putting your late-availability vacancies in front of our thousands of users.
- How many vacancies should I allocate to the booking system?
The booking system works on an allocation basis - to avoid any possibility of double bookings, we recommend allocating vacancies to us on an exclusive basis, blocking out these vacancies so that they're not available to book direct with you or via another booking agent. If you want to remove vacancies from us to sell direct, or add more, you can do this in seconds - but experience has shown that double bookings (and unhappy customers!) may occur if vacancies are available via multiple sources. This also means that you don't need to update our system if you book pitches for that period direct or via another source.
If you do not wish to allocate any vacancies exclusively to Pitchup.com, please take care to keep your allocation up to date, especially if you sell out.
Remember - if you need to reduce, increase or cancel Pitchup.com’s allocation as the date of the holiday approaches, you can update the site instantly - allocations are fully under your control and there are no penalties or release fees, either.
Pitchup.com booking confirmation emails are immediately sent to the customer AND to the email address specified for your site (not the Manager's email address). Please check email regularly to ensure that last-minute bookings aren't a surprise!
We show all bookings in a 'Bookings' tab within your Manager Portal, and we automatically reduce your allocation - so you have full visibility of the remaining allocation.
- How much does your bookable listing cost?
Upgrading your listing to a bookable listing is free, with no regular costs or tie-in. We are only paid for confirmed bookings at a competitive commission rate of 15% including VAT (you can reclaim 2.5% if you are VAT registered).
You can terminate at any time without penalty, and you control the allocation - you can add or remove allocation instantly whenever you wish. Log in to your manager portal to upgrade.
- I already have online booking on my website - why do I need yours? And how do I know the customers wouldn’t have come to my site anyway?
Many of our bookable parks also take online bookings via their own websites - in the same way that companies like BA, Hilton and Virgin still use lastminute.com and Expedia, even though they take online bookings direct.
Our two online booking options complement your own online booking system by acting as an extra sales channel, and will bring you customers who are unlikely to have come across your site otherwise. We will help especially with late-availability offers or difficult-to-fill shoulder-season periods - a similar service to LateRooms and lastminute.com in the hotels market.
Our booking system allows you to add a flexible allocation of pitches and update your details on our site direct. You can allocate as many pitches as you want, and increase or reduce it instantly. By ring-fencing some pitches for us, there's no need to update our system if you receive bookings from elsewhere, unless of course you need them back. Why not try our system out with a low allocation to begin with?
Read more in our bookable listing section.
Our media profile and marketing activity mean that you can be confident of attracting new customers, rather than customers who would have booked with you anyway. With premium listings attracting 40x more traffic than free listings, upgrading your listing on Pitchup.com allows you to capitalise on our traffic of up to 20,000 visitors per day and national media coverage.
While many customers may be finding out about your site themselves, thousands more want to search availability or late deals at multiple sites on a regional basis, or look for sites matching several criteria - such as dog friendly, disabled access, or proximity to a National Park - and make the booking on the same website. Our figures show that Pitchup.com users are three times more likely to book if the park is bookable on Pitchup.com, compared to forcing a user to click away to another website.
Contacting a list of individual sites about availability can take days and many users won’t wait, especially at the last minute. It is these additional customers that Pitchup.com provides access to. Just as many holidaymakers will no longer spend time phoning around airlines and hotels to check availability, our users want to search and book multiple sites in one place.
Research into online travel has shown that one-third of online customers now book via a 'one-stop shop', rather than via suppliers’ websites (source: PhoCusWright), a very large market to tap into for extra bookings.
- I am VAT registered. How do I account for VAT on Pitchup.com bookings?
Pitchup.com acts as your agent (that is, the contract is between you and the customer). The commission ("deposit") we deduct from bookings includes 20% VAT, which we pay to HMRC.
If you are VAT registered you can reclaim this amount. In your VAT return, you should account to HMRC for the full amount paid by the customer, including the amount deducted by Pitchup.com. You can download a VAT invoice for our commission from the 'Bookings' tab at the top of the Manager Portal.
You can select any date period for each VAT invoice, based on arrival date or created date.
Please consult your accountant for further advice on accounting for bookings through Pitchup.com.
- I have numerous types of pitch - how can I encapsulate this in a booking service without speaking to the customer?
We understand that no pitch is the same and that you want to accommodate your customer's wishes for the perfect pitch.
Our advice is to set up a generic pitch type (e.g. Heritage static caravan, Electric touring pitch) for pitches of the same price and general category. If you wish, you can then indicate a few variations (e.g. 4x6 pitch, Ocean-facing electric touring pitch, corner electric touring pitch) in the pitch type 'Description', and show photos of the different sub-categories of pitch type.
You can ask users to specify their preference in the 'special requests' box on the booking form - this will automatically be sent to you as part of the email you receive when the customer books.
- I'm sceptical about accepting bookings online - is Pitchup.com for me?
Although Pitchup.com is generating up to 700 bookings per year for sites bookable on Pitchup.com, we know that many site managers are yet to be convinced about online booking, and this is understandable.
VisitEngland statistics show that some 70% of UK domestic holiday bookings are now made online. People do expect to search for a holiday and book it online these days, especially the online-savvy 'staycationers' who have abandoned foreign trips to holiday at home, who've been booking their flights online for years. People have limited time to phone around for accommodation or wait for email responses, especially at the last minute.
The amount of travel being booked by 'traditional' methods is in decline, and some parks already take over 70% of their bookings online. Over the coming years, fewer than 30% of domestic holiday bookings will be made 'offline', so not taking bookings online does severely restrict your overall market.
Usability studies show that if a website doesn’t provide a way of booking online, many users simply abandon it and find one that does. Just as the internet is a global platform to promote your business, any accommodation owner in the world can now compete for your customer's booking - not only local competitors with online booking, but also hotels and B&Bs, villas and chalets from Stirling to Sao Paolo.
One of the concerns about online booking that we often encounter is how managers can vet potential customers. Our separate FAQ explains how we've designed the site to protect managers and ensure that bookers comply with site rules.
Read more on how our online bookable listings work. For more information about online booking in the parks sector, read our article Online booking comes of age? [PDF download], published in the BH&HPA Journal's May/June 2010 issue.
* Source: UKTS
- I've already got plenty of bookings for this season, why should I use Pitchup.com?
Even if your site is almost fully booked, Pitchup.com is a great way to fill last-minute vacancies and cancellations, as well as off-season dates which are more difficult to fill.
As you are in control of your bookings on Pitchup.com, you decide which dates you allocate pitches for booking and how many pitches are available. You can choose not to allocate pitches on your busiest periods such as bank holidays or high season. You can change your allocation at any time - if you become fully booked for certain dates, then simply remove your allocation on Pitchup.com.
- My tariff involves short breaks and weekly stays - how do I set this up?
There are two ways to do this. For each pitch type:
- If your alternative tariffs apply to different arrival days (for example, a typical static caravan tariff of Sat - Sat OR Mon - Fri OR Fri - Mon), then you can add this information to a single charge type. However, note that for stays of more than one night, each arrival day exists independently - so if you allocate one pitch to a Saturday arrival for seven nights, and one to Monday for four nights, we may sell both unless your remove one of them first. To avoid this, you may want to convert prices to daily and set a minimum stay of X nights. That way, the system checks each day within the stay for allocation and reduces each day's allocation when a booking is made.
- If your alternative tariffs apply to the same arrival days (for example, different rates for different stay lengths on the same arrival day), then you'll need to allocate to a charge type for each extra pricing option. A 'standard' charge type is automatically created, so you can use that for one price and set up another for each additional one. For example, if you offer nightly, weekly, or short break pricing starting on the same arrival day, you'll need three charge types in total so you'll need to set up two more.
Updating allocating and prices
If your prices change more than a few times during the season over short periods, it can be faster to use the 'Allocation calendar' to update your prices. Use the 'Allocation & pricing' form first to apply the first price across the entire season or parts of the season (obviously this price will only be correct for the first period), as well as your allocation and stay rules. Then visit the calendar to apply the changes manually.
- We don't accept children, students or stag parties. How can I prevent this happening?
This is a concern that we often encounter and one that hotel, chalet and B&B owners also raised before online bookings took hold in those sectors. Within our Manager Portal, Managers can add features to their sites, for example 'adults only', 'student groups welcome' or 'single-sex groups welcome'. This determines whether sites appear in search results for those features.
For bookable listings, we offer extra protection. Managers can add prominent rules and warnings in the booking page which users must agree to before making the booking. These messages are reiterated in our confirmation page and email, offering protection for holidaymakers and managers and ensuring that sites rules are complied with.
There are three ways that we protect you in these circumstances:
1. You can add your own prominent warning to your campsite’s page and to the booking page
2. You can add rules to your terms and conditions, which users must accept before booking. These appear on the booking page, confirmation page and in the confirmation email we send to users. Normally you can cancel the booking without refund on arrival or before if the user has breached the terms and conditions
3. You can 'tag' your site with any restrictions using Pitchup.com’s 'facilities' page – these appear in your site's page and in the search 'filters' on the search results page
- What booking systems do you link to?
We currently don't connect to any booking systems. Our booking system lets you add an allocation manually and update your details on our site direct. You can allocate as many pitches as you want, and increase or reduce it instantly. By ring-fencing some pitches for us, there's no need to update our system if you receive bookings from elsewhere, unless of course you need them back. Why not try our system out with a low allocation to begin with?
In the future we may integrate with in-house systems, meaning that our system updates with yours in real time. Currently we are working on integrations with RMS and ParcVu/PottsMullarkey, with other systems in development. However it is likely to be some time before these are complete.
See also our FAQ 'How do the booking systems work?'.
- What is your telephone number?
Call us on 0208 123 4450. Please note that we are unable to accept bookings by phone or email.
- What reservation system do you recommend?
We don't make recommendations for booking systems but are happy to discuss your requirements if you are a bookable listing and thinking of becoming one.
- When can I collect the balance? What happens if a customer cancels?
The cancellation policy and payment process is displayed prominently on the booking form, confirmation page and confirmation email.
Where possible, we advise using the same payment policy and cancellation policy as you use for customers who book with you direct. However, we take our commission as a 'deposit' on booking, so we don't recommend taking a second deposit because this confuses users and they may decide it's not worth the hassle.
If you normally take a deposit at some point after the Pitchup.com booking, we advise you to take the entire balance, since customers have already paid a deposit to Pitchup.com. Some of our sites contact the customer within seven days of the booking, or within 4-6 weeks of arrival, to retrieve the balance of the booking. Others take the balance on arrival - please bear in mind the risk of customers cancelling or not turning up.
Please specify whether you will contact the customer (and when), or they should contact you to pay, if applicable.
You may need to modify your cancellation policy to exclude the Pitchup.com deposit, which is non-refundable barring exceptional circumstances.
Listing questions
- How do I remove my listing?
Because we want to be a comprehensive source of campsite information for our users, we will not remove a listing at the management's request. If you'd like to remove your listing because your site is permanently closed, or you do not offer the accommodation types featured by Pitchup.com, contact us. We accept reviews for all holiday parks and campsites that are listed on our site.
- If listing is free, what's the catch?
Pitchup.com lists holiday parks and campsites free of charge to provide the greatest choice to users and the best possible range of search results. We're also offering free email forwarding of customers' enquiries on a trial basis. To appear at the top of our search results, add your availability and generate up to 700 bookings each yea through our site, check out our upgrades.
- How did my site end up on Pitchup.com? I never asked to be on your site
Holiday parks and campsites get listed on Pitchup.com in a few different ways:
- A user familiar with your site may have alerted us to its existence
- We may have heard about your campsite from a third party, such as a tourist board
- Our editors may have come across a reference to your campsite in an article, guidebook, brochure or website
- There's no section on cottages and chalets, and what about privately-owned caravans?
Unfortunately, at present Pitchup.com only features caravans for hire, lodges, touring pitches, tent pitches and motorhomes.
- How can I access my listing?
Log in to your listing, or request a new password, at our Manager Portal.
- How can I change my description or local attractions boxes?
If you're a bookable site and would like to change the text in your description or local attractions boxes, please contact us.
- How can I improve my ranking and results from Pitchup.com?
The performance of your listing is mainly determined by (1) your ranking within search results and (2) the information provided on your page.
You will only appear in search results for searches matching your accommodation types, location and facilities, so ensuring that all relevant accommodation types and facilities are ticked is crucially important. If the user ticks the "check availability" box when searching, only bookable/available sites appear in results.
(1) We use the following factors to decide where you rank in search results:
- Whether your site is a bookable listing (bookable/available sites rank ahead of free listings in all search results). On average, bookable listings receive 40x more traffic than free listings.
- The average customer rating for your site from reviews submitted on Pitchup.com
- For bookable listings, the number of cancellations due to incorrect data in our system
- The number of reviews your listing has attracted. Adding a Pitchup.com badge (available from the 'Badges' tab within your Portal) to your website will encourage customers to submit reviews.
- In an availability search, whether you have allocation you have added for the dates, accommodation category/ies and party size searched for.
- The number of facebook "likes" for your listing page (we feature the top 10 most "liked" listings on the homepage).
(2) Once users reach your listing page, you can maximise the likelihood of users booking (rather than carrying on another listing page) by ensuring that complete and accurate information is displayed, including:
- Good-quality photos. Research shows that listings with 10-20 photos attract up to 150% more viewers. If you have a bookable listing ensure you have pitch type photos, which appear next to each type of unit bookable
- Appealing descriptive information about your site in the Site information and Nearby attractions and activities
- Directions and location
- Opening times
- Accommodation types and number of units of each type
- YouTube video
- Facilities
- Awards and memberships - David Bellamy Conservation Award, official tourist board rating, AA pennants, membership of Caravan Club and Camping and Caravanning Club
- How do I cancel my availability calendar listing?
You can cancel your availability calendar listing by logging into your Manager Portal, visiting the availability calendar subscription page and clicking "Cancel". You will not be billed for any further payments and your subscription will expire on the date specified.
- How do I set up a campsite or caravan park?
Please see our guide to starting a campsite or caravan park.
- How does the facebook top 10 on your homepage work?
Each day we calculate the top 10 site listing pages on Pitchup.com with the highest (cumulative) number of likes, comments, sends and shares on facebook. Each listing shows the count at the top of the page, alongside 'like' and 'send' buttons, which is the main way that the count increases. Note that this number does not take into account any activity on the campsite's own facebook page, but only interactions with the listing page on Pitchup.com.
- How often do I need to update your site? What about double bookings? I already spend too much time updating websites.
We want to minimise the time you spend updating our site and leave you free to run your business, so we've made it quick and easy to update your listing. Our Manager Portal has been carefully designed to be as easy to use as possible - low maintenance and flexible, minimising the risk of double bookings. Visit our site regularly to add new photos, facilities or attractions, and check for new features such as new search fields that you can appear in.
For bookable listings, the update process for availability and/or prices is simple, even over long periods and multiple types of pitch, with our mass update forms and editable calendar. We want the update process to pay off through high volumes of bookings or higher-quality enquiries, with less time wasted on speculative calls and emails about fully-booked periods.
The online booking service works on an allocation basis - to avoid any possibility of double bookings, we recommend allocating vacancies to us on an exclusive basis, blocking out these vacancies so that they're not available to book direct with you or via another booking agent. If you want to remove vacancies from us to sell direct, or add more, you can do this in seconds - but experience has shown that double bookings (and unhappy customers!) may occur if vacancies are available via multiple sources. This also means that you don't need to update our system if you book pitches for that period direct or via another source.
If you do not wish to allocate any vacancies exclusively to Pitchup.com, please take care to keep your allocation up to date, especially if you sell out.
Remember - if you need to reduce, increase or cancel Pitchup.com’s allocation as the date of the holiday approaches, you can update the site instantly - allocations are fully under your control and there are no penalties or release fees, either.
Pitchup.com booking confirmation emails are immediately sent to the customer AND to the email address specified for your site (not the Manager's email address). Please check email regularly to ensure that last-minute bookings aren't a surprise!
We show all bookings in a 'Bookings' tab within your Manager Portal, and we automatically reduce your allocation - so you have full visibility of the remaining allocation.
- I don't accept tourers and tents - why am I listed with you?
We feature sites with lodges and static caravans for hire as well as tents and tourers. Please log in to your Manager Portal to amend the types of accommodation you offer and specify number of pitches.
- I have reviews, but no review score is showing at the top of my listing
We only show an overall rating score at the top of your listing and in search results once you have five reviews. This is to avoid a smaller number of reviews presenting an unrepresentative rating of your site.
- I'm having difficulty adding my photos. How can I submit them?
First ensure you have the latest version of Flash installed on your computer at this link. If the standard photo uploader still doesn't work, try the link at the bottom of the photo page to switch to the 'classic' version.
Alternatively, your photos may be too large: please 'compress' photos to a file size no larger than 6MB - you can compress files using editing software installed on your computer, such as Microsoft Office Picture Manager. There are many websites such as Image Optimizer where you can submit a large photo and immediately download a compressed version.
We accept all common image formats (.jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png), except .tif, .tiff and RGB.If you're still having difficulties, please get in touch with your Pitchup.com contact, email us on enquiries@pitchup.com or call us on +44 (0)208 123 4450.
- I've forgotten my password
You can request a new password using the "Forgotten your password?" link at the log-in page. Please ensure that you use the email address registered to your listing account.
A message should arrive within a couple of minutes with a new password. If not, please check your junk mail and if you find the message, designate it as "not spam" so that future messages get through.
If the password reset email hasn't arrived at all and the email is used is the correct one, please contact us.
- If my details change in the future, how can I amend them?
Easy - simply log in to your Manager Portal, and enter your registered email address and password.
- My broadband connection is poor, how can I improve it?
Broadband speeds can vary dramatically but there are a few things you can do to improve speeds.
First, check your broadband speed using this speed test.
If your connection is really slow (0 - 2Mb)
1. If your upstream is only 288Kb (0.288Mb), then you are on a very old package, and thus should upgrade and possibly get better speeds.
2. If you are on 0.576Mb or 1.152Mb or 2.272Mb, again consider changing package to improve speeds.
3. If you have an alarm fitted or a Sky box or external ringer (bell so you can hear phone across site when out of office), ensure that there's you've added a microfilter to each socket so that it doesn't interfere with your broadband.
It is not uncommon to see people on old slow packages jump from 0.5Mb to 2Mb or 3Mb, or with 10 minutes of testing, realise that they can go faster by adding a device called the i-Plate.To find out whether or not you'll be able to get superfast fibre broadband for a specific property, use the line checker on your preferred supplier's website. Here's a list of communication providers currently offering or trialling superfast broadband for home or business.
Getting superfast broadband
You can check whether your local exchange is already part of BT's superfast broadband rollout plan at the BT Openreach website. BT is aiming to provide superfast fibre broadband for 40-80Mb to two thirds of the UK by the end of spring 2014.
The government has set a target for:
- 90% of UK premises within each council district to have superfast broadband (at least 24Mb) by 2015; and
- 100% of UK premises within each council district to have at least 2Mb by 2015
Local government is responsible for bridging the gap between BT's 'commercial' rollout and the government's targets, through 'local broadband projects'. In England, local councils at county and unitary level are responsible for local broadband projects. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the devolved administrations are taking the lead.It is, however, doubtful whether the government's 2015 target will be met due to delays in procurement processes for local broadband projects.Where to find information about your council's local broadband project
Nearly all local councils have broadband projects:
- Information about local broadband projects for local councils in England
- Information about local broadband projects for local councils in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- In Cornwall, there is a plan for 95% of premises in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to have superfast broadband by 2014. South Yorkshire and Worcestershire also have separate schemes.
Once your exchange has been upgraded, you will still need to sign up for superfast broadband through a service providers. You will be able to see which service providers operate in your area at the links above.
Grant schemes for hard-to-reach areas
In England, For the 10% of hard-to-reach premises which will only get 2Mb broadband by 2015, the government's Rural Community Broadband Fund is available. Funding of £20m has been allocated for grants to communities.
If you're based in Wales, investigate the Welsh Assembly broadband support scheme, which provides grants of up to £1,000 for premises in broadband slowspots.
Other ideas for improvement and alternatives
- As the demands on wifi increase, it may be worthwhile having two lines: one that is used for the site wifi, and another just for the office.
- Trying different routers is a good idea: routers stocked by the big chain stores are often not up to the job
- If you broadband speed is still low, you might want to investigate satellite access which may provide a more reliable system.
- A leased line may be an option if your budget stretches to it
With thanks to thinkbroadband.com
- My site has received a negative review. How can I remove it?
Our user reviews are intended to provide another perspective on our listed sites. Negative comment is inevitable in any worthwhile reviews system and we hope that managers will treat constructive criticism as just that.
Although we don't remove reviews simply because they are negative, we recognise that not all reviews are genuine or accurate. To respond to a review you can:
1. Add a comment (recommended). In the 'Reviews' tab of our Manager Portal you can add a 'manager comment' to any review and this will be published beneath the live review. Please note that users do not automatically receive a copy of your comment.
2. Use our dispute process. You can ask us to remove a review that is fictitious, personally insulting or factually incorrect by clicking "dispute" next to the review in your Manager Portal. Reasons must be provided in the dispute form. A disputed review will be removed from Pitchup.com pending our investigation of your complaint.
To add a comment or dispute a review, log in to your Manager Portal, click 'Edit campsite' next to the site concerned and find the 'Reviews' tab.
As an additional service, Managers can opt to receive alerts of new reviews in the Manager Portal. If you have not claimed a Manager Portal for your site and registered your email with us, please follow the instructions to do so on the free listing page.
Please note that Pitchup.com operates as an open forum and takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any content posted, stored or uploaded by any third party, or for any loss or damage thereto, nor is Pitchup.com liable for any mistakes, defamation, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, pornography or profanity you may encounter.
For more information on our content policies please visit our terms and conditions.
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TripAdvisor is an open forum and publishes all reviews which meet our review criteria. Please be aware that TripAdvisor cannot accept unsolicited documentation regarding the validity of reviews. Owners are welcome to write a management response to any review they receive.
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- My site is listed on your website - how can I amend my listing?
Log in to the Manager Portal - there you can update your details, optimise your listing and view the stats on your dashboard. If you've forgotten your password, click the reminder link on the login page using your registered email address.
If you do not yet have a password, or your email address has not been linked to your site, click 'I manage this site' on your campsite's page.
If your site is not yet listed, contact us with the information requested at the top of the contact page.
- My site isn't listed. How can I add it?
To add a site, check we don't already list it (we often do!). Contact us with:
- Your site name
- Your site address including postcode
- Your telephone number
- Your website address (if any)
and we'll add it as soon as possible.
We have a backlog of free listing requests, so let us know if it's a bookable listing you're after. A link to our site would be appreciated.
- We don't accept children, students or stag parties. How can I prevent this happening?
This is a concern that we often encounter and one that hotel, chalet and B&B owners also raised before online bookings took hold in those sectors. Within our Manager Portal, Managers can add features to their sites, for example 'adults only', 'student groups welcome' or 'single-sex groups welcome'. This determines whether sites appear in search results for those features.
For bookable listings, we offer extra protection. Managers can add prominent rules and warnings in the booking page which users must agree to before making the booking. These messages are reiterated in our confirmation page and email, offering protection for holidaymakers and managers and ensuring that sites rules are complied with.
There are three ways that we protect you in these circumstances:
1. You can add your own prominent warning to your campsite’s page and to the booking page
2. You can add rules to your terms and conditions, which users must accept before booking. These appear on the booking page, confirmation page and in the confirmation email we send to users. Normally you can cancel the booking without refund on arrival or before if the user has breached the terms and conditions
3. You can 'tag' your site with any restrictions using Pitchup.com’s 'facilities' page – these appear in your site's page and in the search 'filters' on the search results page
- What are your “official ratings” and “Customer ratings” for campsites and parks based upon?
Some holiday parks and campsites are accredited with star ratings from the local tourist board - these ratings are marked as "official rating" in the campsite page. The Customer rating is the average overall rating awarded to the site in reviews submitted by Pitchup.com users.
- What is your telephone number?
Call us on 0208 123 4450. Please note that we are unable to accept bookings by phone or email.
Why Pitchup.com?
- Who is Pitchup.com?
Pitchup.com matches holidaymakers with their perfect campsite or holiday park in the UK and Ireland, listing 5,000 sites. Founded by a former senior manager at lastminute.com with many years' experience in the holiday park sector, the site launched in July 2009 and has already received more than 4m visits.
In 2011 the website was voted Best UK Travel Site by leading journalists at the Travel Industry Press Awards, after beating travel industry giants TripAdvisor, MSN Travel and Thomson to be judged Best Travel Information Site at the Travolution Awards 2010. Pitchup.com has been featured throughout the national press and selected as one of the 50 best travel websites by The Independent.
Since launching our booking service in summer 2010 we've sent up to 700 bookings per year to sites involved, providing an unmatched service selling your vacancies over the web. Read our manager testimonials.
Pitchup.com is always keen for feedback from site managers and is constantly evolving to meet your needs. In return, we’ll give friendly help and support when you ask for it.
The company is based in south-west London. Read more at our about us page.
- How do I contact you with other questions?
We’re very happy to any other questions or comments – please use our contact form. You can also send us problems with the site or ideas for how to improve via our feedback form, or telephone us on 0208 123 4450.
- What can Pitchup.com do to generate more business for my site?
Pitchup.com gives your site immediate access to up to 30,000 daily visitors looking for a site matching their exact criteria, and the chance to capitalise on our national media coverage. We can help you with shoulder season, mid-week breaks, special offers or main season, and we've got the testimonials to prove it.
The more information you add to your listing, the more referrals you'll receive, and you’ll also appear as a local site when users are looking for festivals and attractions. To make the most of Pitchup.com, upgrade to a bookable listing - by appearing at the top of results, bookable listings receive 40x more visits to their pages than free listings and up to 700 bookings per year. Bookable sites also enjoy the highest levels of promotion around our site and in our media promotion.
Find out more about upgrading to add availability or online bookings at our premium listings page.
- Holidaymakers are already visiting my site - why do I need Pitchup.com?
We will refer customers to you who are unlikely to have come across your holiday park and campsite otherwise (that's what site owners tell us in our testimonials). We can also help with late availability offers or difficult-to-fill shoulder-season periods - a similar service to LateRooms and lastminute.com in the hotels market.
Our media profile and marketing activity mean that you can be confident of attracting new customers, rather than customers who would have booked with you anyway. With bookable listings attracting 40x more traffic than free listings, upgrading your listing on Pitchup.com allows you to capitalise on our traffic of up to 30,000 visitors per day and national media coverage. During 2012 we generated up to 700 bookings for each bookable site.
While many customers may be finding out about your site themselves, thousands more want to search availability or late deals at many sites on a regional basis, or use our search to find sites matching several criteria at the same time - such as dog friendly, disabled access, or proximity to a National Park. They also want to make the booking on the same website: our figures show that users are three times more likely to book on Pitchup.com than if they're forced to click away to another website.
Contacting a list of individual sites about availability can take days and many users won’t wait, especially at the last minute. It is these additional customers that Pitchup.com provides access to. Just as many holidaymakers will no longer spend time phoning around airlines and hotels to check availability, our users want to search and book multiple sites in one place.
Research into online travel has shown that one-third of online customers now book via a ‘one-stop shop’, rather than via suppliers’ websites (source: PhoCusWright), a very large market to tap into for extra bookings.
- I have no advertising budget left. Can I afford this?
Pitchup.com's booking services is commission only - we only get paid when you get paid, by billing a commission for confirmed bookings. It's free to upgrade your listing, and there are no up-front costs, no extra fees and no catches.
You'll pay for listing sites and magazines regardless of whether they generate any bookings. Listing sites may be generating a lot of clicks and enquiries, but you may find that few of them actually result in a booking, not to mention the extra work for booking staff.
Taking bookings through Pitchup.com is zero risk - there's no tie-in, and you can leave at any time. Try us out with the confidence that you won't pay anything unless we deliver results.
- We already pay for website listings elsewhere. What makes Pitchup.com different?
Pitchup.com operates a free listing model but the real value is that by upgrading your listing we can send you actual bookings, rather than just enquiries. We don't charge you to upgrade to our bookable listings - there are no up-front costs, no extra fees and no catches. We only get paid when you get paid, by billing a commission for confirmed bookings, so we won't be eating up your marketing budget.
Read what our existing customers have to say about our booking system.
You'll pay for listing sites and magazines regardless of whether they generate any bookings. Listing sites may be generating a lot of clicks and enquiries, but you may find that few of them actually result in a booking, not to mention the extra work for booking staff.
Pitchup.com has been created to fill a gap in the market for a website where holidaymakers can find and book the perfect site. Easy to use, with a fresh contemporary look and feel and plenty of local information such as pubs and National Trust properties, we attract not only traditional camping and caravanning customers but also the millions of online-savvy 'staycationers' abandoning foreign trips to holiday at home.
Because we keep the customer on our site to make the booking, our users are three times more likely to make a booking. We generate up to 700 bookings per year for each bookable park, achieving coverage throughout the national media, being voted Best UK Travel Site by leading travel journalists and beating TripAdvisor to be voted Best Travel Information Site 2010. Read more about our credentials.
- What is your telephone number?
Call us on 0208 123 4450. Please note that we are unable to accept bookings by phone or email.
- Who is Wikiventure Ltd?
Pitchup.com is a trading name of Wikiventure Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales and based in South West London. Find out our company details.
