About Us
From the same team that brought you the über-minimalist Hotel Haiku (the most talked about hotel website at its time of launch in 2011), and Go Glamping (the first and original website dedicated to glamping when it launched in 2008), GroupGlamping.com was designed to help people discover the best group-friendly glamping sites for their next special occasion, family-gathering or company get-together.
Our story
We originally launched the GroupGlamping service in late 2018 exclusively for our Go Glamping members whereupon it immediately generated group bookings such was its laser-targeted focus.
The initial version of our website was a bit unconventional to say the least but highly-effective nonetheless.
For anyone curious on what the website looked like back then here are some snapshots from the Web Archive:
There were no listings, just a static website with some stock images and a basic form enabling potential guests to post their group requests, i.e. “I’m looking for a suitable glamping site up to 2 hours from London to host my husband’s 40th…”
You get the idea.
We would mail our Go Glamping members with these details as and when requests were posted on our website. We collated all repsonses from the glampsites and formatted them into a PDF that we would then send to the requester.
The requester would then contact the glampsites directly and make a booking. For any successful bookings our members would pay us a fair commission which, like our website, was all handled on a manual basis.
As you can imagine, it was a labour intensive process but one that was necessary in order to validate our idea before commiting resources to further develop the idea into a more automated service.
During the close of the 2019 season we sat down with all our findings and started to work on the next version of the website with the intention of automating some, but not all, of the processes using a combination of tools at our disposal.
By February 2020 we had launched a new version of GroupGlamping.com only for things to come to a grinding halt a few weeks later as the global pandemic took its devastating toll and changed everyone’s lives.
Admittedly it wasn’t the best timing ever, but we do seem to have gained an uncanny knack of launching new travel ventures during a crisis, as this piece in The Telegraph reminded us.
So with the pandemic now well and truly behind us, we give you the latest iteration of GroupGlamping.com
There’s more to come as we build new features and improve the site going forward.
Our website
Do one thing; do it well.
GroupGlamping.com was built with one goal in mind: to showcase group-friendly glamping sites in an engaging, super-fast and user-friendly format.
It is this clarity of purpose that sets us apart and stands us in good stead.
The internet is changing
With up to 80% of web traffic now coming from phones and the dominance of mobile advertising, a new type of online experience is needed.
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Mobile users read half as many pages and spend half as much time on sites compared to desktop users.
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35% of millennials would like to book from their phones but say it’s too hard.
Whilst our website doesn’t offer bookings, most if not all booking systems were designed for desktop first with mobile bolted on as an afterthought.
And they are definately not optimised for group bookings.
GroupGlamping’s user-focused design, quick search, and instant page loading, all combine in presenting our listings much faster and more effectively than traditional websites in this field.
A new approach is required
Our website’s performance is second to none.
GroupGlamping’s clean and minimal style was designed to showcase large glampsites not only in a fresh and elegant format but blazingly fast too.
We’ve kept our website lightweight to ensure quick time to view even on 3G connections…
- More direct; less verbose.
- Low on word count; high on impact.
- Instant listing pages; no waiting for them to load.
- Instantaneous search and filtering; results appear as you type.
All of this has been achieved without compromising on style or features.
Great feedback so far
Since relaunching GroupGlamping.com in early 2024, feedback has been very positive with the following encouraging comments…
- Like a digital rolodex of large glamping sites.
- A little black book of potential ideas for our next big gathering.
- Great name, does exactly what it says on the tin.
And this one, our personal fave…
- The speed of your website is truly impressive… faster than a whippet doing zoomies!
Our team
Garri Rayner | Designer
With a background in graphic design & market research, former record label owner Garri put ‘glamping’ firmly on the map in the UK when he launched the first website dedicated to glamping in 2008. The rest, as they say, is history.
He still can’t get his head around being interviewed live on BBC Radio by the charming Lauren Laverne about his Hotel Haiku website.
Hika Zenebe | Developer
Originally from the Ethopian capital of Addis Ababa, Hika currently resides in Switzerland where he is studying Data Science. As our website runs on cloud-based technologies he helps us with all sorts of clever stuff that we can only dream of.
A keen snowboarder, when he’s not shredding the park you will often find him in his kitchen rustling up vegan delights that will make your mouth water.