Hidden Valley Caravan Park, Powys

Situation

Trouts, trailers, tennis plus a nine-hole golf course, plush swimming pool and a gym – what more could you ask for? Situated in a 200-acre site of farmland peaceful wooded valley in Powys, the Hidden Valley Caravan Park first launched in 1974.

With its stunning location, scenic walks and leisure opportunities it’s no surprise that the years that followed saw the park scoop a string of awards, including the prestigious ‘The Best of the Best Parks in Britain’. It’s now a Welsh Tourist Board Five Star Park.

Challenge

Hidden Valley Caravan Park is five miles from the nearest exchange and 10 years ago, the BT broadband service it had was almost non-existent, with speeds averaging 0.5 Mbps.

The flaky broadband service was costing the leisure destination sales and damaging its reputation.

“Broadband provision is an important requirement for people coming to their holiday homes,” explains park owner, David Jones.

“And the lack of broadband was off-putting to potential customers looking at the park. They would ask about the provisions and were disappointed when we explained that there was no broadband provision.

“We also have a very poor mobile signal – so it was a very difficult combination.”

Slow broadband made everything from basic admin to marketing/ advertising and web activity very difficult to do from the park office.

Solution

“We tried various solutions – including a satellite solution and a few different wireless solutions but none of them were able to cope with the requirements,” explained David Jones.

“Airband were in the area and we made some enquiries and Airband owner Redmond Peel came out for a chat.

“From this conversation it was a quick process to get set up, and we haven’t looked back” says David Jones.

After 10 years, expectations and demands had increased and in 2019, the caravan park upgraded to a 100:100 leased line to keep up with current and future demand.

Results

Having broadband service from Airband transformed Hidden Valley’s office activities, and meant that for the first time it was able to offer guests access to broadband onsite. The improved upgraded leased line service is a non-contented line and enables it to offer faster, better broadband for both staff and customers.

Benefits of Airband’s 100:100 leased line service

• Improved sales and marketing
• Boost website traffic
• Facilitate better online activites
• Enhance the facility
• Generated a positive customer response
• Excellent SLAs including four hour response time and an eight hour fix time