Estivotravel started in 2019 with just 40 mobile homes spread across three Italian campsites. The model was straightforward: own the accommodation, rent the pitch from the campsite, and share the upside of every night sold. Founder Marcel Janssen built it around a clear bet that German and Dutch families would pay for genuine comfort if every detail was right.
Estivotravel invests heavily in product: generous layouts, comfortable mattresses, fully equipped kitchens, spacious covered verandas, and private Wi-Fi. "Quality and comfort should feel like home: not standard plastic bucket chairs, but luxury reclining chairs with comfortable cushions," says Marcel. That obsession with detail is what brings families back year after year.
During their COVID-era expansion into Luxembourg and the Netherlands, their old provider announced it was shutting down. Estivotravel needed a system that could keep up. After reviewing several vendors, they chose Maxxton for flexibility and scalability. "With Maxxton we set our profitability rules the way we want, not the way the system dictates," says Marcel.
By the early 2020s, Estivotravel was hitting close to 100% occupancy in high season, with only last-minute cancellations leaving an occasional empty day. The planning behind that result was almost entirely manual. The team optimised planning boards by hand, and the weekend and midweek arrangements offered by their previous PMS were a poor fit for a brand selling week-plus stays to families driving south from Germany.
During the pandemic, Estivotravel opened sites in Luxembourg and the Netherlands to serve its core German and Dutch markets. At the same time, their existing PMS provider announced it was closing. With no IT department and active bookings to protect, the team faced a tight migration deadline and had to find a system that could accommodate rapid growth without slowing it down.
Estivotravel doesn't have an IT department, yet the business added 112 new accommodations in a single year and now operates across seven countries. Onboarding new campsites, configuring rentability sets, and training a fast-growing sales and back-office team all needed to happen at pace, using software the whole team could pick up without weeks of training.
New campsites and units can be configured in hours rather than days, with rentability sets, pricing rules, and inventory all housed in a single PMS. That speed has let Estivotravel grow from three Italian campsites in 2019 to more than 500 luxury units across 19 European campsites, including expansions into Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and a new Polish-language market.
Rentability rules and smart reallocation keep units full, even outside peak weeks. Estivotravel hits close to 100% occupancy in high season, with only last-minute cancellations leaving the odd empty day. "Occupancy is everything for us. With Maxxton, we can keep our campsites full, scale faster, and give our guests the service they expect," Marcel says.
A new Maxxton-powered website and tighter channel management have lifted direct bookings from around 60% to 75%, reducing dependency on third-party channels and protecting margins. Repeat guests remain the backbone of the business, with three out of four bookings coming from returning families who pick their preferred pitch.
Notification Manager sends transactional emails in six languages on automatic triggers, so guests receive timely confirmations, payment reminders, and pre-arrival information without staff needing to step in. The team looks more professional in every market, including the new Polish audience served by a dedicated website and Polish-speaking staff, and back-office time is reinvested in higher-value work.
Without an IT department, Estivotravel relies on Maxxton's usability and support to keep operations running. Sales, back office, and operations staff all picked up the system quickly, and the company is now building its own e-learning tools to onboard new hires and sales staff even faster. "That's why ease of use is so important. It makes their lives easier," Marcel says.