The boss at one of Haven's biggest sites has spoken about how he is gearing up to go from being the 'only soul on the ship' to an expected bumper tourism season.
The holiday giant saw one of its most challenging years in 2020 with the pandemic leading to lockdowns and huge changes in their operations to make sites as Covid safe as possible for guests and staff.
But when they were open the parks boomed and bookings are flying in for 2021.
Parks reopened in England today and Hafan-y-Môr near Pwllheli also opened its gates for the first time - a couple of weeks after Haven's other Welsh sites.
Andrew Baker is the general manager of Hafan y Môr and is expecting this season to roar straight back into life - a far cry from the last lockdown when he was left as one of the only staff on the sprawling park - home to 1,500 holiday units.
He said: "At that point we shut and staff were put back on furlough, I was literally the only soul on the ship at that point, which was a strange experience.
"The team have been very keen to get back.
"We would normally reopen on March 1 for owners and a couple of weeks before Easter for the facilities so we are not far behind that. We now hope that it will be a one-way street."
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From an empty site in November the park could now see months of busy activity with bookings booming.
Andrew said: "There is huge demand and we get a spike with each announcement as we get more clarity, that really helps us.
"We are not expecting any lull - I think we will be full from the peak and beyond that into September. Perhaps another month of trading is on the agenda for 2021.
"We are getting customers who have never tried us before, we now have the different 'stay and stay and play options' and we are getting people who see us as a base for exploring the area which will be good for the local economy.
"Some of these new customers are people who would have gone aboard in previous years, we now have to ensure they have a good experience and keep coming back. We can show them the good outdoor family things to do here."
The pandemic has seen changes forced on the company that will become permanent.
Andrew said: "There are some things we have done like the contactless check-in that we don't know why we haven't done it before.
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"The booking system with allocated arrival slots has worked really well so we have made permanent changes to the operation.
"Arrival day had been one that staff used to dread and it wasn't a good experience for customers but that has changed - it is also better for the cleaning team and should help the local roads as well. The booking system for things like restaurants and takeaways will also continue."
Despite a difficult year there has been continued investment in the park with this expected to continue under the new Haven owners. US investment company Blackstone have agreed to acquire Bourne Leisure, the parent company of Haven Holidays, Butlin's and Warner Leisure Hotels.
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Andrew said: "2020 was a strange year but we are still doing investment on the park, more pitches and we are investing in the infrastructure of the park
"The change of ownership is very exciting going forward. I think they will expedite investment in sites so the outlook is good."
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