Pontin’s recruiting strongly

As a recent follow up to Jim’s blog on could 2009 be a boom year for UK holiday destinations? comes the news that holiday camp company Pontin’s has announced that it will invest £50m in redeveloping its holiday centres, creating 2,000 new jobs in the process.

According to reports on the BBC, Ocean Parcs, which owns Pontin’s, said bookings for half term, Easter and Summer 2009 were “significantly up”. Pontin’s was originally set up to offer holidaymakers a low-cost break. It provides self-catering and half-board accommodation. At its peak in the 1960s and 1970s Pontin’s had 24 camps, but that number has shrunk as more and more people started holidaying abroad. That trend is now going into reverse.

Pontin’s are also taking this as an opportunity to revamp and update their offering, something that rivals Butlin’s picked up on a couple of years ago. Oceans Parc have only recently bought Pontin’s in March 2008 for £46m. The business has frequently changed hands in recent times but the current owners may have bought at exactly the right time. The current economic climate and the weak pound are exactly the opportunity they must have hoped for.

“There will be a substantial switch this year from overseas holidays to UK holidays and that is obviously what Pontin’s is tapping into. British tourism this summer has fantastic opportunities,” commented Simon Calder, travel editor for the Independent newspaper, quoted by the BBC.