Lisa Vickery and Nick Daley A move to Cornwall and an impulse buy – four years and two children later Lisa and Nick have just taken their first holiday! 12 WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM
PEOPLE ormer BBC journalist Lisa Vickery and her partner Nick Daley, a property developer, had no experience of running a glampsite when they took on Macdonald’s Farm in 2019, but that didn’t put them off taking a leap into the unknown. “It’s funny because, having worked as a journalist at the BBC for 20 years, I’ve made documentaries about people like us!” says Lisa. “It was after I was made redundant and expecting our first child that we decided to make the move to Cornwall. We then found this campsite within a year of moving here. We had no intention of buying a business, but it seemed like a really good idea, and given that my job involved a lot of organisation, we thought it’d be quite a good match for me. Although to be honest, it was the alpacas that sealed the deal for us!”. The existing business had been running for around 20 years, primarily as a day attraction, and was very much in need of modernisation, as Nick explains: “The place hadn’t been updated for about 15 years, so we decided to focus on the accommodation. We refurbished the B&B rooms, created a glamping area, extended the camping pitches, and reduced the size of the day attraction, which meant we could reduce the day entry fee.” The couple originally did away with the attraction aspect of the business altogether but then realised there was still a demand for it. “Despite competition from bigger and shinier attractions in the region, people who had been visiting for years kept turning up, so we decided to offer it again, but for a much more realistic price,” he says. In terms of the site’s appearance, the pair opted for a ‘rustic luxury’ look. “We wanted to create something that had that real, ‘glampy’ feel to it,” says Nick. “We didn't want a traditional toilet block, for example. Instead, we created cladded buildings with uplighting and little plant areas where guests come in. But at the same time, we wanted to offer a bit of luxury for all seasons as well because, in Cornwall, the weather can be both amazing and awful!” This led to the purchase of four safari tents after a visit to the Glamping Show. “I was surprised at the lack of quality with some of the more expensive solid structures – we looked at units costing £60,000, but just weren’t confident about their longevity.” An additional arm of the business is the café, although Nick and Lisa decided not to run it during their first year. This led to much disappointment from the day visitors, reveals Nick, “People would pay to come in, have a lovely time, and then head to the bar/café point and say, ‘what’s for lunch?’ and we’d have to tell them that we didn’t do lunch; the best we could offer were some sandwiches from the fridge! This didn’t go down terribly well, as you can imagine. “So now we have a fully functioning kitchen run by a local chef who, until recently, had his own two-rosette restaurant nearby. It does, of course, mean that it’s another business to manage, but it’s definitely worth the effort. Word of mouth about the changes at Macdonald’s Farm is starting to make us a destination for people, which is a huge help during the quieter months when we’re still paying for the café to be staffed from 8am to 8.30pm every day.” Another aspect of attracting visitors to Macdonald’s Farm is the entertainment offering, which is Lisa’s remit. As she explains, “We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere here, so we figured when we got people in, we should capture them and make them have a nice time here rather than going elsewhere for their entertainment. We really wanted to support local, and I had an enjoyable couple of months sourcing local talent, of which there is no shortage in Cornwall. And there are lots of young musicians, very talented musicians, that really want an opportunity to play. We also want to engage with families that come here. We do things that a lot of campsites do, like family quizzes and games, but because we have the animals, we really wanted to make the most of that, and so we offer anything from goat walking to pony experiences. It’s all about making the most of the opportunities within the farm to create an income, but also to give people a unique WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM 13
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