UKC

I'm looking into building some glamping pods in Scotland and was wondering if the good people of UKC could tell me about what sort of thing they look for in a glamping type location if thinking about booking accommodation there?

The pods would each have a kitchenette, toilet, shower, beds, tv, etc.

How would you value:

decking area with outdoor table and chairs - communal or individual to each pod?

BBQ and fire pit.

Highland cows.

Rental bikes.

EV charger.

Laundering services (basic machine wash and tumble dry).

Outdoor hot tub (This is definitely the most expensive item and I'm very dubious for a variety of reasons).

Is there anything else cool and vaguely affordable that I'm overlooking?

I'm not thinking of creating a huge expensive place, so things like swimming pools or adventure parks will be outside my budget and means. It will be on typical open Scottish country/mountainside, not in a forest.

Are the highland cows for the barbie?

Glamping confuses me somewhat but useful things from my perspective would be:

Bike cleaning area and basic tools.

Drying room.

So, a hose and maybe big eaves on the bike shed so you can stand out of the rain while cleaning the bike? Basic bike tools are easy enough.

Good plan, don't know how I managed to forget that one in Scotland!

Thanks for the suggestions

Never done glamping, but maybe hampers from local suppliers? 

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Anything that gets people taking up arms and villifying each other!!

1/10. 

For me (a hardened camper) I would be looking for the romance of camping without the hardship. Also a much lower price pont than b&b accommodation. 

Well insulated, maybe some heating so I can use it year round and a solid roof which is rain and wind proof. Also an indoor space to escape the midges. 

Not bothered about decking, but a simple bench outside each pod to enjoy the fresh air on would be great

Really not interested in tvs when on holiday, would prefer a selection of books and board games. Hot tub of no interest, although swimming pool would be lovely  

Drying room is a good call and more important than laundry.

Safe storage for bikes and kayaks would also probably be well received depending on location. 

​Communal fire pit would be lovely, everyone likes an open fire!

Maybe a simple kids play area for little ones. 

It's been a long time since I changed anything on my profile and even longer since I created it. I've mellowed with age. This is a genuine thread and I'm not trolling.

Thanks. I did think a bit about having local produce available, I'm not sure there is enough variety of local produce in the area though.

Advantage of this idea is that it isn't infrastructure related so I could easily pick it up and look again when I've got more local connections and the business has been running for a few months.

You and I have clashed on this same matter before. If you're for real, why don't you edit your profile?

Btw, this suggestion:

 just seems totally weird!

I am aiming to make the layout, view and location quiet, secluded and, well, tick as many of the sort of romantic boxes as I can rather than making a kind of manufactured site where the emphasis is on how many people you can get per m2.

In terms of price point, that is determined in a large part by the cost of creating the site, the price points of other, similar developments and the price that customers would be willing to pay (the first two factors would be known at launch and the third would likely influence any changes of price after the launch).

Well insulated, underfloor heating and general weather/midge tightness are already in the pod design, so should be ticked on those scores.

Thanks. I guess the decking wouldn't detract from it for you but the idea of making it possible for guests to request that no TV is in the room is a good plan - it's easy enough to remove and store for one customers visit.

Thanks.

Kayak lockup is an interesting idea - I don't kayak, so I don't know, but do kayakers worry that the kayak will be stolen in rural Scotland in general? Are you thinking about a rack of some kind that you can put the boat in and then just lock shut with a padlock? Presumably this doesn't need to be indoors? Presumably the same issues for canoes.

Already have plans to concrete in some bars to lock bikes to (probably in the bike shed).

Great

Thanks. I looked into this and it's astonishingly expensive, even a sensibly appointed small kids play... feature?... With a couple of swings, a slide and some sort of mini wooden tower you can climb up into would come to around £10 000 to £20 000. Intuitively I am 100% behind the idea, especially as I love the idea that when I'm bored, I could play on the swings - swings are the best! I will have to look at it again and see if there is any way to make something at a lower cost without it looking sad and low quality.

I want burgundy velvet drapes, asses-milk baths, peeled grapes and grilled glisglis.

You can keep the eunuchs though.

Ah, right. Forget the Highland Cows in that case - it's sheep you're after.

The matter of my profile not being up-to-date? Or the issue of glamping pods? I don't remember either but that isn't too surprising, my memory is definitely failing but I'd rather blame stress than age, at least I can fix the former!

Done.

Glamping in France yes. Scotland no.

In the North of Scotland a very large number of visitors stop to take photos of highland cows - ergo reason for having them. I should have a reasonable little bit of land though, so a mixture of sheep and cows would be possible... do they live together without any issues or would a fence be required?

For balance: I  f*ckin' hate 'em! Well, specifically, I hate the smell of smoke - whether from tabs, burnt toast, burning logs, or otherwise. So 'open fires' - lovely; fire pits (and associated smoke) - no thanks.

Controversial!

Four things to consider

Location

Location

Location

WiFi

Re sheep: I was merely referring to the 'romantic' possibilities.

They certainly do. I had to tow a car belonging to a distracted tourist who'd gone into a ditch whilst looking at the Coos on a minor road near Connel last year. It was in my interests to help as they blocked the road and I was trying to make the Lismore ferry.

Thanks. I've done a fair bit of work looking and I think I have a good location but I'd rather not discuss that at this early stage of the planning. Good shout on the WiFi, I forgot to add it to the list in my OP but it was very much in my head, one of the list of things I need be sure of is that the service I get can give enough bandwidth for the site; I fully expect this to be a tricky issue because the low population density means a highly distributed telecommunications infrastructure and basically a lot of difficulty getting any sort of "high speed connection".

Sounds good, but I was thinking more back to nature rather than romantic retreat. 

I guess that's my problem, I like basic and am looking for cheap and cheerful.

No TV not a detraction, just unnecessary and takes up space. Same with WiFi, really useful for weather forecasts and local informative, but nice to get offline and have a technology detox. 

No objection to decking and helps to keep mud down. Prefer not to be heavily landscaped with flower beds, but more of a gently tamed nature kind of surroundings. 

Certainly not a problem to leave outdoors and racks not necesary. I guess it depends on location for security and volume of users as to if the demand is there. 

Ouch, yes stupid prices. As you say I was thinking a couple of swings, nothing bits flashy or expensive. 

Another idea would be a wet drying room for rucksacks and other gear that doesnt need to be heat dried. Total pita trying to store wet rucksacks or waterproofs and they don't really need a heated drying room, just to be left to drip off. 

An on-site shop!  The farm shop at the Strathfillan Wigwams is particularly good, they sell meat and everything you need to barbecue it. 

Also, the common washing machine and dryer should work properly and there should be enough so people don't need to waste hours waiting for someone else's washing to finish.

Maybe have normal camping as well as the pods.  Most sites seem to do that.

Yeah, it's going to be more on the expensive side. There is a nearby campsite so to avoid competing for the same customers with similar budgets, my site will be quite a different market. Also, pods are expensive and unlike houses, they almost certainly don't appreciate with time, so medium to higher prices are a must to make the business financially viable.

I'll avoid changing the existing land except where I'm making foot pads, gravel paths and planting some trees. I'd agree that flower beds wouldn't really fit in.

Lots of unknowns tbh, though I'd say I see a lot more vehicles with bikes than I do with boats. I'll have plenty of space so I can set an area aside as a canoe/kayak ground and if it gets used I can look at a simple rack - shouldn't be too expensive.

I think this can variability can be taken care of by having a little heating in the drying room and using the washer/dryer combination for totally fettid and disgusting kit.

Great idea, definitely a positive for customers and something I've been mulling over quite a bit. But... And there are a few buts! My concerns are:

1) I'm sure I would need some sort of certification to be selling food and accompanying onerous food safety measures, particularly if it was fresh produce.

2) Managing stock of products with a very limited shelf-life and avoiding waste (which would make me cry) feels daunting.

3) I'm aware that every thing I add on to the site adds additional man hours to run and/or additional risks of equipment failure/things going wrong. On the scale of risks and running effort, running a shop with fresh food is very high in my estimation relative to other things like the bike shed, drying room, etc. that do not require much active management.

The nearest groceries shop is about half a mile away so, on balance I am hoping this will suffice.

The machines will be quick and proper laundry grade industrial things because I'll need to use them for towels and sheets on a very regular basis so they need to be quick, reliable, large volume and effective. I think for a relatively small site it should work fine allowing the patrons to use the same machines I use. If there is a problem, I can install additional machines later.

There is an existing campsite for tents quite nearby, so I think I would be setting myself up for a tricky competition there. I need to keep my initial plans to a manageable level too as I will be starting out alone, if I create too much workload I will simply fail to do all the running tasks. And this entails finding a larger area of land than I have and building a toilet and shower block on top of existing plans and almost certainly beefing up the septic tank and soakaway, carpark and other services too. It is certainly something I could consider in the future though.

Edit: Thanks very much for the Strathfillan wigwams suggestion though, lots of interesting stuff to look at at their site. It's a really big operation though, looks like at least 4 or 5 times as big as what I want to start off with

I don't know how popular the concept is in Scotland, but over here a number of glamping areas are not complete without a fire-heated bath. That seems to be something almost on people's bucket lists - light a fire and sit in the bath drinking a wine watching the sunset.

It's pretty cynical, but I think what attracts a large chunk of people will be experiences that are able to be aesthetically photographed. If the experience can't be photographed well (for example, caving - not that it's something you can offer but just an example of something that is too hard to make an envy-inducing photograph of), then it won't be as popular with that market segment. So from your list, highland coos, rental bike and fire pits etc - they all photograph well. To put it another way, for a certain chunk of the market, you don't sell experiences - you sell photo-ops that must be able to create envy in their social media circle. The silver lining is that these people will give you free advertising by tagging your business in their photos.

Are you planning on going to the site daily because you will need to if you have a hot tub. People are not going to shower before getting in the tub, they will jump in sweaty and orrible and if the pods have individual private tubs they will do things in there that will make it much more orrible. 

A bbq area for each pod and a communal fire pit with a larger bbq is the way to go, ticks both the social and private boxes that way.

Cows and Sheep, why not but you would have to keep them away from the pods via a fence otherwise people will be paddling in shite, they will also need a level of looking after so it's a bit more hassle for you. 

TV, WiFi ect, I don't touch the Internet or the TV when I'm on holiday, the wife does though. 

All I look for when booking a place is somewhere that our little doggy can run about like a fool safe in the knowledge that he can't go far and somewhere I can sit quietly and read a book. 

I have friends who do this and bothying all the time during better weather and a good view from the window is always a feature on the photos they bring back with them. As is a well lit outside hot tub, an outside fire and pics of wildlife deer, seals etc. 

Try a months holiday staying at the different options already available around Scotland and see what works. The ones at By The Way in Tyndrum have got it right in my opinion but I guess everyone is looking for slightly different things. 

Fingerboards in case the weather's too shit to climb.

Anyway, serious question I've always wondered about: How big and glam does a glamping pod need to be before it counts as a chalet?

Definitely sounds like something to look into, thanks. I don't know if conditions are my site would really lend themselves to this being a success but I guess it would, at the minimum, be a lot of fun getting an old metal tub and trying it out a few times before considering buying a shiny new (copper?) photogenic one.

I have no problem with cynicism if it allows me to supply things that people want and make my business a success

I expect to be on site daily or at least most days, yes, at least initially. If things get off to a great start it would mean I could get an employee to take over some duties and give me a little better climbing to work balance.

Good shout, thanks.

Yes, they would be fenced away from pods. There are various farmers very nearby so I think that some variation on outsourcing of animals and/or animal care should be possible. I've spoken to a few people who have sheep and cows and it seems that in general as I'm not trying to run that as the business part of my enterprise (like harvest milk or raise a lot of lambs or whatever), it shouldn't take up too much time.

In dog terms, do you mean he needs to be fenced in on all sides? Or just be further than X metres from a road? How big is "X"? (I've never had a dog, so I'm pretty ignorant on them) Would you worry if the parking area was accessible to him?

Ah, very good to hear. I think the view is good so hopefully have that ticked, can get the fire ticked for sure. Interesting to hear another vote for the outdoor hot tub. I did actually briefly consider deer and a deer-fenced enclosure, maybe I should look at that idea again

I have a super secret plan that involves a small indoor bouldering wall that nobody but me will know about. But don't tell anyone

Thanks for the idea. I'm definitely on board with looking at what other people are doing and pinching [cough] emulating their ideas!

One of the issues I have is that the accommodation I am providing is not the sort of accommodation that I would personally normally be staying in (I'm pretty much a dirtbag when it comes to holidays) so whether I like something or think it is opulent, glam or luxurious isn't a good measure, what I need to do is look at everything vicariously, which is obviously easier said than done!

Thanks for the name of By The Way too, looks like they have a lot of good ideas. It's a lot bigger than what I'm planning though, so some of the facilities they have won't be realistic for me.

Or alternatively a well stocked library. I rather enjoy staying in places that cut me off from the distractions of daily life provided there are other interesting things to do.

i.e. Instagrammable.

In our case we look for a fenced in garden for the pod / apartment we have rented, I would be nervous of a large fenced in communal area as you don't know who might leave the gate open or feed him something not good for him.

We have not camped with the pooch though, my joint problems don't allow camping anymore. 

As it's glamping then no hardship should be involved so your site should be no more than 10 minute walk to the nearest pub, restaurants, shops and garden centre.  

Good on you for not trying to compete with your neighbours. I guess I'm not your target market, but totally understand your points about setup and running costs. 

Agree about staying small initially. Let's you get an income to fund further development, plus allows you to see what facilities or extras you're users need/want.

Regarding dogs, allergy sufferers may prefer pet free accommodation. How about setting aside specific pods which are individually fenced and dog friendly, with the unfenced marketed as pet free?

That's a good idea, thanks. The price of second-hand books should mean it's pretty cheap to create and running time and cost should be almost zero.

Should have most of this covered in 10-15 minutes walk.

Sounds like I could put individual fences around 1 or 2 pods for this purpose and also make those the pods that allow dogs and keep the others dog-free to take care of the allergy worries Jenny raised.

In reply to Jenny C:

Sounds good, thanks

Definitely the laundering service - particularly after the cows had been inside  

Definitely separate out pet friendly and pet free pods.  I run a two bedroom house as a holiday let, I don’t allow any pets and I recently had a guest have an allergic reaction.  I have a cat at my own house and I suspect my guest’s reaction must have been triggered by bedding laundered and ironed at my place, as there have been no animals in the holiday house and I’m super fussy about cleanliness there.

You might also want to consider what you want to provide in the way of bedding/towels and what you expect guests to bring themselves.  Do not underestimate the increase in costs and time providing bedding and towels involve.  Especially at the glam end of the market - people will expect smooth (ironed) bedding and high quality, fluffy towels, which won’t stop them getting weird stains on them/nicking them. 

I plan to tick all of this and supply all bedding and towels. If someone wants to steal towels or cutlery or whatever else, they will find themselves getting charged for this, stains are a different matter - accidents happen and replacing towels and bedding and broken crockery is a running cost to be expected. All this is a lot further down the line past the design and building stage though, so I have not nailed down exact details yet of how, for example airbnb and booking.com deal with theft by customers.

Yes

Maybe. I could get psyched on a BBQ

Errr... Ok!

I've got one so errr...  No

Not for me might be a good idea tho. 

Yes!!! 

Nah. I'd just make everyone else feel bad with my rock hard abs.

Drying room please. 

Decent insulation

Kettle

Best of luck!

On my list now, thanks to others asking too.

Tick

Tick, with spares in office for when they break and need replaced.

Thanks! And thanks for your replies too.

Gas fas fired patio heaters surrounding the heated jacuzzi wotsit in case there's a nip in the air

All good but I'd forget the hot tub personally.  Bike cleaning and small repair space would also be good. 

I've got an eye on trying to remain environmentally responsible as far as possible so gas fired patio heaters are definitely going to be a no-no for me.

I think I'm erring in the direction of at least putting it off till I'm up and running and confident that I'd have the time to look after one.

Good. I've got plans for that.

A brother runs a holiday let business, with one of the lets being a circus caravan, a wooden round house, and something more 'bungalow like', and has found that the hot tubs for each let are really popular, nobody goes away for glamping and leaves a review marking somewhere down on 'not' being able to be communal with the other people is my thinking. Once you've got income coming in I guess the hot tubs could be added later on. 

Guests seem to like buying local cider and beer by the bottle, and other snacks and things, which means that my bro pays for his own cider and beer by buying it in bulk and charging a little bit above cost per bottle. Guests pay a certain amount for wood for their hot tubs to heat them themselves (which incidentally pays for a year's wood for them), and extra too for it to be heated for when they arrive. 

I guess you could keep chickens and sell the eggs too. 

I didn't realise that hot tubs were environmentally responsible devices. Do they replace baths and showers?

Apologies if these are already mentioned but I’ve not the time to read all the posts, it’s a long thread.

I am not a “glamper” but have been glamping in an effort to help a mate take baby steps to get his wife camping. We went as two families and it was ace. I am also talking form a perspective of trying to find accommodation for an annual “uni mates and families” meet up and the associated needs/wants of people who would consider glamping as an option.

So, things we really liked:

• The wasn’t too many tents (these were posh canvas tents) on the site, we all had a lot of space around us so we didn’t feel like we were falling over the neighbours and obliged to strike up conversation.
• The site felt like a meadow with tents in it, not landscaped, lots of wildflowers and tall grass.
• The site was easy to exit on foot with a couple of nice walks and a stream to play in very close. We didn’t have to drive to do stuff. One place we stayed had a little print out map with two short walks do able with small kids from the campsite. The “non- camping” family really appreciated this as they didn’t have an OS map of the area.
• We had great weather. Make sure you buy a lot of sunshine…..

Things mentioned in the thread:

• A small play area makes a BIG difference (from experience camping with two smallish kids). If you can make the finances work, do it (or maybe assign an area to build one later once the business is up and running)
• Decking in front is good, definitely worth it.
• I’m not bothered by firepits but they, and BBQs, are very popular at all the camping sites we go to so I’d say they are a must. Make sure you sell the wood as this seems a decent money maker.
• Get a local dairy to deliver fresh milk.
• If you can get a shop sorted, even if it’s tiny, do it. We always forget stuff and always end up spending in the campsite shop if there is one there. Local meat for the BBQ and fresh eggs always goes down really well.
• No TV. Families turn up with a host of phones and tablets so there is no need.
• Wifi – yes, same reason as above.

Good luck!

What market are you looking at? Posh people who don't camp or do the outdoors, or outdoor people that don't want the hassle of a tent? If it's the former you need to provide more stuff such as bedding, TV, towels etc. If it's the latter then make them bring sleeping bag liners and supply duvets. you'll also need to provide storage / drying areas for outdoor kit for these people.

If you're doing a communal firepit, then what you actually want is roofed shelter with central pit&chimney and waist-high walls around with seating.  The roof so it can be used anytime for anything, and the walls to keep the wind off and sound in a bit.

Have you worked out how many pods you need to build to make it worthwhile?  What about presence onsite of staff? Nothing annoys me more than needing staff help for something and no-one's around. the better your 'passive' information is the less you'll be hassled.

How big is the area of land (dimensions, I can't work in acres)?

Yeah, this is another of the reasons I'm humming and hawing over having a tub - it's not great on an environmental level but patio heaters are definitely really at another level because the heat really is just being lost instantly. Open fire pit and bbqs are probably not very environmentally defensible either..... but the line has to be drawn somewhere and I'm sure that place will vary from person to person. For me personally patio heaters are over the line. Maybe "reasonably environmentally responsible" would be a better description of my outlook rather than "as possible".

Sounds like he has a lot of fun and inventive ideas!

Yeah, I think the tub is probably an extra to be added on later.

I assume your brother has to have an alcohol licence to do that? Are they hard to get? I don't know anything about them. Sounds like a nice idea and the benefit of not selling anything with a short shelf-life like meat and veg would be that keeping track of stock and ordering should be a lot simpler. On the flip side, keeping stock would still take up time and having customers come regularly to the office to buy things would also take away from my time for other things.

I don't want to sound overly paranoid but I'm a bit concerned that when I start out, the daily tasks of laundering, cleaning, cutting grass, answering e-mails and phones, managing bookings, spamming social media and ordering supplies will add up to a huge amount of work from the get go and the one thing I absolutely cannot afford to do is drop all the balls because causing the business to fail would be... well, serious!

I found some free range chickens running around literally next door, so I think I've got that covered for anyone who wants them

That's good to know, thanks.

Good to know, Jenny C said something similar so it's obviously something that is noted.

I plan to have a folder of information on local activities that people can do with walk, cycle and drive distance type ideas. Using a stream sounds like a good idea, I'll have a look into that and see what I can find, I might be able to do something similar.

Tragically in Scotland as a whole I think the going rate is 1% of your soul per full day of sunshine and I ain't that rich!

Ok, sounds like something I need to look at again. One of the strong benefits of that feature is that it shouldn't require any time input from me once it's created.

Good

I'm such a business noob had just mentally noted "keep a big stack of fire wood for people to use"! Sounds like selling it is a much better idea for another revenue stream, thanks.

Eggs from next door I think and maybe some products with very long shelf-lives... but I guess i'd just repeat what I said to Timmd a minute ago about time available vs responsibilities.

Hmm. Good point, but I wonder if they wouldn't like to be able to plug the laptop into a bigger screen at least so they could all watch a film together at night?

Potentially either/both. I think at the price-point of pods with their own toilet and kitchen and so on, it's probably more in the realms of posh people but I don't think I would be putting off outdoors people by supplying bedding, etc. and I can tick the requirements of both groups in the same time (have planned in drying room, TVs, etc.).

That's an interesting take on this. For various reasons I had more of an idea of an open area with the unimpeded views and really being outside. I will have a bit of a think about whether an external or internal idea would be better.

Yes, I've done some budgeting and feasibility work. The staff to begin with will be me, myself and I. If things take off to a flying start, there should be plenty of bandwidth in the budget to employ help, if it takes a bit longer to really get going, I can cover things myself.

This is one of the reasons I'm wary of creating too many extra things that take regular daily amounts of time rather than just occasional or even just original setup amounts of time.

60m by 50m approximately, so it's not a huge site but I believe there is plenty of space to fit what I want in. 

You've got me thinking that he technically should do, but he's not thought of that I don't think. There's planning consent and everything else for what he has, that's just 'slipped through' as it were. 

Him and his wife did spend a year and a half running to keep up, before they sat down and thought about how to 'make the business work for them' and they now take the odd day off during the week, or keep a weekend to themselves, they're lucky enough to be able to make sure to stay below a certain vat threshold above which they'd need to take on many more guests to make the extra tax worthwhile, so they close for a few weeks each year. 

I reckon you can expect to have a year or so of running to keep up before finding more of a balance.

Yeah, I'd check on that, easy not to think of it but I think the penalties might be bad if runs foul of that.

Hmm, it sounds like they approached it a bit differently to me - by and large I am aiming to set up so that the experience is more "welcome, here is the key, blah, facilities, blah, enjoy your stay" and then to have guests staying independently of me and just doing what they want to do. I realise this is fondly fooling myself to some extent because there will always be things that need my input but I'd like to try to minimise that as much as possible so that I don't get completely wrecked because that would really take the fun out of it.

At the point where you first mentioned  a hot tub I actually suspected "troll". 

With it being only 3 they can afford the time to offer a welcome meal without it messing their work/life balance up too much. That relates to the hot tubs you're thinking about a bit, because it takes a certain amount of time to empty and refill them, 15 mins perhaps. The cosy wooden things people stay in seem relatively upkeep free to me which should help you, compared to my bro's lets which have bits and pieces in.

That's not so surprising! If I was talking about building my own house and someone suggested an outside hot-tub, I'd basically be like "lol, yeah and a trampoline next to it so you can leap in! Meanwhile in seriousville..."

But I'm building something for other people so setting aside my personal viewpoints is crucial. However I obviously don't want to simply set aside my personal morals, so some middle ground has to be found there.

Yup. The more I think about a hot tub, the more certain I am that it isn't going to make it into the site in the beginning and can go on the docket for later consideration when I'm up and running.

Pods will still have sheets and towels to launder and a compliment of cutlery, dishes, cooking implements, etc. etc. But obviously a lot fewer things than in your brother's places.

As it's you, yourself and you running the place then laundering & replacing bedding will take a significant amount of time you won't have, so the more you can reduce that the better. Lets say you have half a dozen pods - can you keep up with daily laundering of sheets, making beds and twice weekly laundering of duvet covers? Make your life easy by specifying guests will have the same bedding for the duration of their stay (bar accidents), and only launder towels when needed.

In my experience, people will want to use a communal fire area for BBQ evening meal, or to sit around toasting marshmallows and drinking after dark, but they've been in places with no views. If you have a view to appreciate then you might need to modify your plans.  Perhaps the sensible thing is to make a simple open pit and only build my suggestion if it doesn't get used?  If there's any wind people won't really want to sit around after dark as it'll be cold.

Time to get on googlemaps and see other sites and their density.  If your site is on a hill that makes a huge difference.

It takes more than 15 mins now that I think of it, but they do other house keeping things while letting the tubs drain before refilling them. To make life not a pain in the arse you'd need a cold tap close enough to each tub to put a hosepipe into each one for refilling, but the tap could be there for each pod anyway for a water supply perhaps, which could require putting gravel in place to act as a soak away for the water so that you don't end up with a muddy area around each pod related to the water supply. There's bound to be some mud when it's grim weather. When I think of it the draining of the tubs may mean a soak away is needed anyway.

I'd only think of laundering once a week (per booking that is), and have extra bedding in a cupboard on site, having them have to come to you for fresh bedding following an accident might be embarrassing for them I'm thinking, maybe making a vaguely awkward cupboard to get to for bedding a good plan. I've always found that because I sleep warm I prefer blankets to a single duvet, but I could seem to be unusual in how warmly I can sleep.