Rod Jones, CEO of EuroResorts, explains: “The origin of EuroResorts goes all the way back to when I was in my gap year at university, and it started out as a bit of a project from a family point of view. We had a few caravans on a campsite in the south of France. I set up a limited business to gain practical experience for my course, and for my father to have something to do during his retirement, so we formalised it, and it grew from there.”

We sat down with Rod to hear that journey, why Maxxton became a key partner for growth, and how the EuroResorts team uses technology without losing focus on high-quality service.

Owning the homes, sharing the sites

Rod remembers the early years clearly. “The early years, we were not very flamboyant,” he said. “It was long hours, and we didn’t take out big wages or big salaries or you know have nice expensive holidays. We reinvested profits back into the business to grow organically… here we are today, 27 years later.”

Over that time, the footprint changed shape many times. “We’ve worked with many campsites over the years, and we’re currently on 14 great camping resorts,” Rod said.

Part of the appeal for campsites came from capital. “Most of the campsites were looking to expand, but perhaps didn’t have the capital to expand at that time,” he said. “They were looking for tour operators to come in and work with them and also diversify the market, bringing over UK and Irish customers was appealing to campsites, which was predominantly our customer base.” This places EuroResorts in a competitive market.

Competing on more than price

So to stand out, Rod keeps EuroResorts’ positioning simple. Guests get strong value and a product that feels a step up. He described “the quality of the campsite” and “knowing our customer base” as key advantages.

That combination lets EuroResorts deliver a great product and service to customers at competitive prices. “We developed the low season, in particular, the winter long stay market, we’re talking hotel resort facilities at villa prices.”

But Rod doesn’t want to compete on price alone. “It’s about delivering value and it’s delivering quality of service, so that that’s something where you’re not on a race to the bottom with prices because it’s about the services as well, price is very hard to compete on, but service is something you can distinguish yourself with,” he said.

Service also influences how they work with campsites. Over the years, they have moved on when standards didn’t align. As Rod put it, “if a particular campsite isn’t working over a period, we have to transition and pursue new opportunities."

One system behind every booking

EuroResorts entered the market as online booking took off, and they leaned into that change. Rod recalled how the internet “opened up opportunities” and how EuroResorts built on that. They moved from brochures and agents towards a model that relied more on direct online sales and a strong website presence.

That move helped them reach guests in different markets and keep pace with changing booking habits. It also set the stage for a deeper investment in back-end systems and data. When the time came to choose a property management partner, that experience shaped what they sought.

EuroResorts and Maxxton have worked together for many years. Rod said, “it was in 2013 that we started with Maxxton, so we’ve been partnered quite some time now.”

Future-proofing sat high on his list. “We wanted a system that evolves so that we didn’t have to change our system every few years,” he said. “Maxxton evolves as the technology evolves, and that’s been really important for us.”

That long view influences how he sees the relationship. Rod called Maxxton “one of our key strategic partners,” and added: “We’re very pleased with that partnership and where that’s taken us so far.”

Greater reach without losing focus

With Maxxton’s distribution tools in place, EuroResorts also uses OTAs to spread risk and reach new guests. After the pandemic, Rod said they “partnered with OTAs to bring in customers from different locations” and used those channels to “complement our existing direct bookings and fill other markets when they have different booking dates and different price points as well.”

That switch means the business no longer relies on a single core market. “It’s not that we’re 90% relying on the UK and Ireland,” he said. “We’ve now got really, really good balance for our customer base.”

In some countries, OTAs help EuroResorts go further than they could alone. “We’ve used it strategically so where we don’t have the resource to target the French, German, or the Nordic markets,” Rod said. Partners “provide the customer service leg of that, all the call centre and everything else and the language skills that come with that.” For him, that has been “a big, big boost” and “a really good option for us moving forward.”

Alongside that reach, EuroResorts wants its own website to stay ahead, which is powered by Maxxton’s Web Manager. That direct channel is built around its core audience: UK and Irish guests who want a combination of escape and familiarity, “taking a bit of home and putting it in a nice warm climate,” as Rod described it. The website reflects that promise with British and Irish-friendly information, FAQs that match their questions, and clear details on each emplacement, while still giving the quick, modern booking experience guests expect.

Guests now have endless options on OTAs, our website must actively work to earn their booking. As Rod put it, “there’s a plethora of OTAs who provide very similar accommodation. How do you start to differentiate? For us, it’s a cutting-edge website where you can get the information really fast, and highly personalised, you can be guaranteed that emplacement, removing any uncertainty from the booking process.”

Technology that supports recurring bookings

Repeat guests sit at the heart of the direct strategy, and Maxxton helps keep things easy for them. “We’ve got a very high level of repeat customers,” Rod said. “It’s easy for them to log into their account, which again the technology provides us with that solution to do so and rebook again. They are recognised as an existing customer, they get benefits as an existing customer.” For him, “the important thing is that the technology, when a customer returns, gives them all the information that is there at the time when they need it.”

Behind the scenes, automation supports this. Rod talked about “maintaining those values of high customer service, everything correct at the right time, all the information, the accuracy, and the automated approach such as  balance reminders” Those messages are, in his words, “very important for the customer to get at the right time, very important for the business as well from cash flow,” and “highly important to how the customer is engaged all the way through their booking process and beyond with us.”

Rod thinks guests feel that difference. “They’re highly appreciated by the customers because they don’t have to call; the information’s there waiting for them,” he said. “Sometimes it’s prompted, sometimes it’s unprompted,  the system can handle it, and that’s really useful because the customer can get the information they want when they want it.”

Balancing people and technology

EuroResorts also leans on Maxxton’s dynamic pricing and smart guest allocation on larger campsites. “We’ve seen great benefits of the priority allocation and the dynamic pricing. We have a lot of accommodation, so it does bring great efficiencies to that,” Rod said. On smaller or new sites, the team stays closer to the controls. In those early phases, “it needs a bit of a human touch to get through,” balancing the machine learning part and the “human learning part.”

That is why they stay close to new openings. “We like to have a training period when we’re onboarding a new resort as well, and that means we’re kind of plugged into what’s going on on a regular basis,” he said. The aim is to “rapidly learn and understand if this is something strategically we want to develop for the future.”

A partnership that feels like family

For Rod, one thing ties it all together: long-term partnership. EuroResorts grows without taking on debt, stays close to its campsites and invests in technology that supports that way of working.

Maxxton sits at the centre of that setup. Rod summed it up simply: “Partnering with Maxxton, with the automation of the software systems, has helped us to really focus on our customer service.”

He also values the network that comes with the platform. “We’ve had some other Maxxton partners prepared to assist us, like De Krim,” he said. “For example, they’ve said these are some of the things we’re doing, these are some of the best practices we do, and they’ve offered themselves up to say, you know, come and chat with us about how we do things and learn.”

For a business that started as a family project, that kind of relationship matters. Today, Rod said it feels like “a bit of a Maxxton family.”