Glamping in Lavoria, in the province of Pisa

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For some years now, a whole new concept of camping has been gaining ground in our country, involving the use of facilities that emphasise comfort and luxury. This has given rise to the term glamping, or glamorous camping. We at Glant are among the first in Italy to design and sell glamping tents, and over the years we have become a partner of excellence for all structures promoting this new camping concept - from agritourists to resorts and campsites to villages.

Contact our office in Via Galileo Galilei, 42, Pisa province, to discover our extensive catalogue of glamping facilities.

Glamping experience

Glamping mania: the phenomenon is growing by 10% a year amid nature and comfort

According to Risposte Turismo's analysis, the pandemic has accelerated the demand for evolved versions of camping in Italy and around the world.

There are about one hundred 'glamping only' facilities in Italy (95 to be exact, with 1,510 beds), but the number triples (up to 294 for 10,000 beds) if we consider traditional facilities such as campsites that also offer this solution: the region with the largest number of glamping facilities is Tuscany, with about 77 facilities, followed by Piedmont and Veneto. These are some of the findings that emerged from the extensive research promoted by Risposte Turismo, which drew up the identikit of the supply and demand of a phenomenon that in our country is still young, as it began in 2018.

But, as in the rest of Europe and the world, the phenomenon is set to grow 'at a rate of 10% per year. And Covid has given a further boost to the trend,' comments Francesco di Cesare, president of Risposte Turismo. 'There are two lines on which a change is conceivable: an expansion of services to complete the product portfolio and greater specialisation, because it is on this field that the competition is played, even if the promiscuity of the offer within a larger container will remain, perhaps with a different mix.'

The Global Scenario

In 2021, the value of the industry on a global scale has been estimated by Grand View Research at USD 2.3 billion: Europe is worth around 35% of the supply, with France, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia and the Netherlands as reference markets.

It is also interesting to note how China is appearing both on the demand side (increasing requests to go camping) and on the supply side, with business growing at a rate of 20% according to iiMedia Research. "Open-air experiences in locations with extraordinary landscapes are the main motivation of European glampers," adds di Cesare, "and this figure is in line with the 84% that emerged in our survey of Italian glampers.

There are two main motivations for this choice: contact with nature and the desire for an alternative holiday without renouncing the comforts of classic facilities'."The current trends in the sector concern investments in landscaping, preserving and enhancing the natural heritage of open-air villages, taking care of the positioning of accommodation, carefully designed to ensure sustainability and originality in design.
Prevailing solutions from tents to buses

The most commonly used accommodation solution is the tent (in 53% of the mapped glamping accommodations), which however takes a variety of forms such as 'coco sweet' (large fabric tents), 'wood tents', tents on the water or suspended in trees or two-storey wooden tents.

They are followed by 'lodge tents' (16%) and treehouses (8.1%). Other less popular forms include chalets, caravans, pods, gypsy carts, starsboxes, barrels, luxury bungalows and even buses.
Additional services

An issue that still needs to be adequately developed is that of services: on the supply side, the analysis shows that 71.7% of glamping sites offer guided excursions, such as walking, fauna observation and birdwatching; 61% also offer special activities such as yoga, meditation and wine-tasting, while almost 20% allow guests to access the glamping site on a day trip without accommodation.

On the demand side, 45.6% of guests stay and do special activities, compared to 50.5% who simply stay at the facility and only 3.9% who use the facility on a day trip without accommodation.
The 'mature' user profile

But who opts for this type of accommodation? If worldwide the market is made up of 70% of people between 20 and 50 years old, with the 18-32 segment dominating (source Grand View Research, 2021), the results that emerge from Risposte Turismo's analysis for Italy are very similar, with almost 43% of glampers between 25 and 40 years old and 31% in the 41-55 bracket. Young people under 24 account for only 15.2%, 'probably due to the average price of accommodation'.

Compared to classic camping, then, it emerges that it is the overnight stay as a couple that is the preferred choice of glampers (51%), followed by staying with the family (39.1%). The sample analysed tends to stay an average of 1 or 2 nights, but there are also 25% who stay for more than 4 nights.

As far as origin is concerned, 38.3% of the sample come from other Italian regions, 30.6% from EU countries, 26.3% come from the same area/region as the glamping site and 4.8% come from outside the EU. The main inspiration for this experience comes from social networks for 58% of the respondents and in more than 9 out of 10 cases the experience is booked online by those directly interested.
Price analysis

"When considering average expenditure," the analysis highlights, "glamping confirms itself as a type of accommodation that costs more per night than the average accommodation solution: 35% (camping data for the majority) of respondents claim to have spent between 51 and 100 euros per night, while 27% (structured villages) between 101 and 150 euros and 12.5% (Only Glamping- Farms) went over 200 euros". According to the president of Risposte Turismo, however, price "can be a lever used to credit this accommodation solution with value.

Companies are aiming to make glamping perceived as something exclusive". "the rates reflect the high level of the offer that Italy is able to guarantee. A level equal to that offered by classic resort formula accommodation. However, there is a knot to untie," he warns, "and that is the lack of specific laws regulating this form of accommodation, also because there is no real identification of the product.