Part of the tranquility that comes with holiday parks is the stunning, natural surroundings, attractive on-site accommodation, and plentiful resources. To maintain this, parks must rely on robust security and safety systems, which play a huge role in safeguarding beauty spots from harm, protecting people and property.
Tom Ambler, Leisure Sales Manager at wireless solution experts, Ramtech, discusses a decade worth of site security at Scampston Park Lodges, and how holiday park owners can utilise smart connected park technology to protect their investment and create added value.
Security for holiday parks in the UK
The United Kingdom is home to roughly 6,000 holiday parks, according to Savills, generating about £9.3 billion in visitor spending, before the COVID-19 pandemic. When protecting such valuable assets, holiday and leisure park owners are challenged by the risk of break-ins and other security, or safety threats.
To better protect sites, there is a rise in parks seeking connected systems that can work together to provide the best protection combined with other useful park management tools.
Security solutions
Holiday parks can have multiple security and site management systems in place
Holiday parks can have multiple security and site management systems in place. Popular forms of protection include physical teams of security staff patrolling parks, CCTV cameras, intruder alarms and more. It isn’t uncommon for parks to utilise a combination of tools, however, managing multiple systems often leads to increased cost and more time spent by staff managing the park security.
On top of this, park owners also have an obligation to ensure that the site is well run and safely managed. This means being able to raise alerts to hazards such as fire, medical emergencies, SOS and more.
Furthermore, practical considerations like invoicing occupants based on their cabin’s energy usage and keeping track of when shared utilities need cleaning or servicing, can continue to add up to the extra time and resources spent on monitoring a park.
Connected parks
Realising that the number of security, maintenance and alert systems needed by holiday parks is vast, has resulted in the advancement of technology to create ‘connected parks’.
Connected parks link together security and other monitoring requirements of the park, in order to keep it safer than ever before, while also providing crucial insight to help streamline park operation.
Wireless WISE security system
An example of this technology in action is at Scampston Park Lodges, which has used Ramtech’s wireless WISE security and monitoring system to cover the 35-acres site, since 2011. Choosing to have 27 alarms, once an alarm is activated inside a lodge due to a break-in, this then works in harmony with the Ramtech REACT cloud-based system to deliver a notification, which is instantly sent to park staff, pinpointing the exact lodge for a response.
For lodge owners, the peace of mind this offers is priceless, particularly given the system’s wireless capability, ensuring it can be installed in even the remotest of locations, as well as being completely scalable should they need more alarms in future.
Smart wireless technology
The WES system for instance can combine both fire monitoring and emergency call point features
By using smart wireless technology, systems like the WISE security alarm that Scampston Park Lodges has in place, are then straightforward to combine with other useful security and safety systems, including Ramtech’s WES emergency wireless fire safety alarms.
The WES system for instance can combine both fire monitoring and emergency call point features, that once activated will inform the park operators and the emergency services if programmed to do so.
Integrated smart metering services
While sites must ensure that safety and security is robust, often supporting insurance claims and marketing the site to prospective holiday-makers, other park management features, which support with the efficient and daily running of the park, are also welcome. This is where technology has evolved to help answer these added value requirements at the same time as emergency response needs.
As an answer to this, WISE has integrated smart metering services, communicating in real time accurate energy use data and consumption patterns. Benefiting the guest and staff, employees can be connected from a park management perspective, receiving reports on any cleaning and maintenance activities that are required to be undertaken.
A connected future
The potential to transform holiday park security, safety and general management, through integrated and connected solutions is within grasp.
By combining monitoring and alert systems, this not only saves valuable management time, but also allows for easier gathering of data and ultimately helps to increase the speed of responses. For busy holiday park site owners and their teams, the value of connected parks therefore cannot be underestimated.