Strategic Partnerships &

Community Engagement.

Sometimes, the most effective holiday park marketing doesn’t happen in isolation – it comes from partnerships and tapping into networks beyond your own

Holiday parks, especially independent ones, can greatly amplify their reach and credibility by teaming up with complementary businesses and engaging with the local community.

Moreover, partnerships often provide fresh content and offers to promote, keeping your marketing from going stale. Let’s explore a few partnership strategies:

1. Cross-Promotions with Local Attractions: 

Identify popular attractions or activities near your park – these could be a local adventure park, a zoo or farm, a historic site, a festival, or even a well-known hiking trail. Approach the operators about creating joint packages or discounts. For example:

  • Partner with the nearby adventure zip-line center to offer a “Stay & Play Package” – guests booking 3+ nights at your park get 15% off tickets at the adventure park, and conversely their customers get a special lodging rate at your park.

  • Team up with a local family restaurant or pub: “Dine Out Deal” – your guests get a free kids’ meal at the pub, and the pub’s diners get a flyer about weekend breaks at your park.

  • If there’s a seasonal festival or event (music festival, food fair, etc.), see if you can be an official accommodation partner, offering a discount to ticket-holders and being listed on the event’s website.

These cross-promotions are win-win-win: your guests love getting a deal (and something to do), the partner business gets more customers, and you both get exposure through each other’s marketing channels. Ensure you and the partner promote the offer simultaneously – you on your website/newsletter and they on theirs, effectively trading audiences. Local tourism boards might also support these bundles, as it lengthens visitor stay and spend in the area.

2. Influencer Collaborations (Micro-Influencers & Bloggers): 

Influencer marketing isn’t just for fashion and tech – it can work great for travel and hospitality. Identify a few micro-influencers in the travel/family niche (those with, say, 10k–50k engaged followers, especially on Instagram or YouTube). These could be family travel bloggers, pet travel Instagrammers, or outdoorsy YouTubers. Invite them for a complimentary weekend stay at your park in exchange for content coverage. Be clear on expectations: perhaps they’ll do a series of Instagram Stories during their stay, a permanent post or Reel afterward, and a blog review or vlog recap.

 Micro-influencers often have a tight-knit follower base who trust their recommendations. Seeing an influencer genuinely enjoy your park can drive their followers to consider you for their next trip. When coordinating, brief the influencers on your key messages – for example, if one of your aims is to highlight new glamping pods or your park’s eco-initiatives, make sure they’re aware so they can mention or show it. Provide a dedicated hashtag for the campaign and encourage creative storytelling (their authentic voice is what resonates, so avoid scripting too much).

 After the stay, not only do you get their posts (user-generated publicity), but you can also repurpose some of their beautiful photos or quotes (with permission) in your own marketing. It adds a third-party endorsement that builds trust with your audience. 

3. Affiliate Marketing & Referral Programs: 

This is somewhat related to influencers but more transactional. You can set up an affiliate program where certain partners (like travel bloggers or local tourism sites) get a commission for every booking they refer. For instance, give a blogger a unique promo code or booking link – if someone uses that to book, the blogger earns 10% of the booking value. This incentivizes them to actively promote your park. There are affiliate networks or software that can help track these, or you can do it manually if it’s a small program. It’s essentially paying for performance – you only incur cost when a booking comes in, which can be efficient.

 For more traditional referrals, double down on encouraging guest referrals as mentioned before. Some parks find success with giving referring guests a reward (like a £50 voucher or a free night) if they bring in a new booking from a friend. Market this in post-stay emails: “Loved your stay? Share this code with a friend for 10% off – and you’ll get 10% off your next stay too as a thank you!”

4. Community and Local Business Engagement: 

Holiday parks often thrive in close-knit communities, and showing some local love can indirectly boost your reputation and word-of-mouth. The good news is many park operators already do a lot of this – surveys show around 90% of parks actively promote local businesses and events, and about **80-91% sponsor or support local community initiatives. From a marketing perspective, don’t hide that light under a bushel:

  • If you sponsor the local kids’ football team or host a charity fundraiser, share that story on your blog or social media. It humanises your brand and locals will appreciate the shout-out.

  • You might dedicate a section on your website to “Our Community” detailing how you promote local producers (maybe you stock local farm shop items in your camp store) or listing the events you support. Potential guests see that and feel good that their holiday spend supports a business that cares about the community.

  • Engage with local press – a community angle (“Holiday Park raises £5k for village hospice” or “Hosts annual dog show for charity”) can get you featured in local news, which not only reaches locals (potential repeat visitors or day visitors) but also bolsters SEO via backlinks from news sites.

In all partnerships, tracking the results is key.

As one FAQ below addresses, use unique UTM links or codes for each partner so you can see in Google Analytics how many bookings came via that collaboration.. That helps you know which partnerships to continue or amplify.

 Remember, one of the greatest benefits of partnerships is audience expansion. Each partner has its own customer base; by collaborating, you both get in front of new eyes with an implied endorsement of each other. And the cost is usually minimal – it’s often just a small discount or some coordination effort. For independent park owners with limited marketing budgets, this kind of grassroots marketing can be incredibly effective.

#1 Tip: When in doubt, partner with local attractions or businesses for cross-promotion. Guests love bundled experiences, and you’ll capture new audiences via each partner’s marketing channels. Plus, it strengthens your ties to the community – a win all around!

Need Help With Your Strategy?

Get in touch! We’d love to hear all about your plans and help you come up with some new ones too.