Jutarnji List reports that luxury hotels in nature are one way to describe mobile homes, an increasingly popular tourist trend in Croatia and the world. This is a market that McKinsey & Company estimates will be worth $157 billion by 2023, mostly thanks to the new concept and design.
Namely, twenty years ago, mobile homes were most associated with small, not very well-equipped apartments without bathrooms, which were slightly better than campers. However, thanks to the development of technology and the general popularization of glamping, today they have reached the level of luxury with which they match top apartments and hotel rooms, offering closer contact with nature and a much more pronounced sense of privacy than classic forms of accommodation.
That this is a trend that will greatly affect the Adriatic’s tourist image in the future is shown by Terra Park Phalaris and Terra Park SpiritoS, new mobile home camps near Novalja on the island of Pag. These projects will open their doors to guests this season, after four years of preparation, confirmed Zvonimir Tudorović, a member of the Terra Park d.o.o. Management Board.
Terra Park
“In preparation for the 2021 season, the camp will additionally adapt to new trends in the modern tourist market by investing in the development of new forms of accommodation units and upgrading common facilities for guests. Our concept is to combine the indigenous natural environment with the requirements of the modern guest and connect it all into a unique holiday experience in this location,” said Tudorović.
The Terra Park Phalaris camp is adorned with a long tradition of campers, but this year part of the plots will be reserved for 67 mobile homes of different sizes and equipment levels produced by Adria. These will be one of the largest and best-equipped homes currently available on the market. Namely, these mobile home plots have an average area of about 200 square meters, of which 30 percent have their own heated pools, and it is almost twice the standard prescribed by the tourist authorities for the camping industry. All homes are, at the same time, set level with the ground, and the spacious terraces are paved with natural stone and covered with bio-climate pergolas.
Terra Park
Similar standards will be applied in another facility within Terra Park d.o.o, the Terra Park SpiritoS camp.
In addition to the spaciousness, the greatest emphasis in the camps will be on sustainable development and symbiosis with nature. There will be no asphalted surfaces in the complexes, and a large bio-purifier will be installed, which will, among other things, be used to irrigate indigenous horticulture.
“We are especially proud of the materials to decorate terraces, trails, signs, and other elements in the camps for which naturally degradable materials were used. Disposable plastic or other types of artificial materials will not be used. Also, the use of organic cosmetics in mobile homes should be highlighted, as well as the great emphasis we place on cooperation with the local community, such as the 80/80 concept, which means that 80 percent of groceries consumed during camp holidays are within a radius of 80 kilometers,” Tudorović points out.
Terra Park Phalaris allows you to buy and rent mobile homes, offered at 59,900, 76,000, and 95,500 euros, depending on the size and level of equipment. It is important to emphasize that homeowners can rent their homes with Terra Park’s help, which provides real estate management services for them. The concept is quite simple – the owner uses the home for their own needs whenever they want, and the rest of the time, Terra Park increases the value of the home by placing it on the tourist market. According to Terra Park, the expected return on investment is 5 to 7.5 years.
“The profitability of such an investment is long-term, no instant return can be expected, but we believe that, after the return on investment, repaid houses will remain available to owners for at least half of the total life of the house,” explains Tudorović and adds that in the pre-sale process they sold more than 30 percent of the homes, before their installation in the camp.
In addition to modern design, return on investment, and connection with nature, several other factors contribute to the popularity of mobile homes. The first is related to the current pandemic situation. Namely, Tudorović believes that a significant part of the current hotel guests will reorient themselves to stay in mobile homes. The main reasons, he says, are to avoid mass contact with other guests in common indoor spaces, especially at the reception and in the hotel restaurant. On the other hand, there are demographic trends in the main markets. Due to the aging population, guests from the camps are increasingly focused on staying in the homes because they have all the comforts of home and do not have to drive with their own campers to the destination. On the other hand, the diverse offer of mobile homes (especially those with their own pool) has brought back young families with children to camps. One example is the Tomići family, who bought a mobile home in Terra Park Phalaris.
Terra Park
“As a child, I almost always stayed with my parents in campers. It was a great time with lots of families and kids, but in controlled conditions with no roads and no traffic. I continued to maintain that tradition later, but in 2012 we had twins and went to a mobile home on Pag for the first time. It was a great choice because we had a lot more intimacy than in an apartment. If we had been in the apartment, someone might have been bothered by the children crying, but we had our peace in our small home,” Marin Tomić remembers.
For the next eight years after that, they spent their summers only in mobile homes, always in a different location. Namely, due to the nature of their work, they did not know when they would go on annual leave, so they would go at the last minute and asked for free reservations in the camps. That is why they started looking for a camp where they could buy their own mobile home, but they could not find a camp without flaws. Either it was too big, didn’t have clean papers, or wasn’t accessible to children. As this is a large investment, they wanted to make sure that the purchase would pay off. They came across Terra Park last summer.
“My wife and I made sure to check each step a few times so that our investment didn’t fail. Twice we were one step closer to concluding the deal, but then a problem would arise that would cause us to give up the purchase. But then we found Terra Park, and it turned out to be a firm with a head and a tail. In just a few words, we concluded that they know how to handle their business, so we decided to buy a mobile home from them,” says Tomić and points out that now he and his family will be able to sit in the car carefree on Friday after work and go to their mobile home for the weekend.
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