The East of England Tourism Awards 2022-2023 are now open for entries. The Camping, Glamping and Holiday Park of the Year award, sponsored by Next Phase Leisure, recognises camping, glamping, holiday parks, sites and villages providing truly memorable guest experiences and demonstrating excellence across every aspect of the business. 

Andrew Hird, general manager at Next Phase Leisure, said camping, glamping and holidays parks represent a significant amount of the available “bed stock” in the east of England, while playing a crucial role in attracting tourists to the region. “In addition, these businesses provide both direct job opportunities through hiring internal personnel and indirectly through their supply chains,” Andrew explained.

He said there’s a lot to gain from entering your business for an East of England Tourism Award. “Entering offers a great opportunity for self-reflection. It encourages you to look critically at your own business to identify strengths and weaknesses, so even if you don’t end up winning the award, you will have gained some useful insights.

“It can also provide additional PR opportunities and give you the chance to gain a competitive edge through achieving an endorsement and trusted logo.”

Andrew said entries can stand out by providing concrete evidence of their ongoing strategic investment and performance improvements. “We are particularly interested in seeing which metrics they use to measure guest experience and how they process and interpret this information to improve their business.”


He added that the award winner will be a business that shares best practice across the wider tourism industry, puts the east of England “top of mind” with potential visitors, and demonstrates excellence across the board.

“Excellence drives high-quality experience, which in turn contributes to increased occupancy, higher visitor numbers, sales, repeat bookings, positive online reviews, and revenues for the wider tourism economy,” Andrew said. “In order to achieve excellence, every cog in the wheel has to shine!”

Meet the sponsor

Next Phase Leisure is a professional consultancy service company operating in the holiday park industry. It offers bespoke services to independently-owned holiday parks to help them improve and optimise their performance.

Having years of first-hand experience in developing and operating highly successful holiday parks, Next Phase Leisure can provide tailored and actionable recommendations to holiday park owners and operators to help them elevate their business to the next level. It specialises in park design/build, park acquisition, organic growth, and operational and commercial efficiencies.

It also holds exclusive distribution agreements with Sunseeker and Atlas Leisure Homes.


Archant organises and hosts the annual East of England Tourism Awards to recognise and celebrate those businesses and individuals that contribute to the regional visitor economy. The awards are open for entries until Sunday, October 2. To enter, please visit www.tourismawards.co.uk