Letting Seasonal Pitches Without Blocking Your Nightly Diary

A seasonal pitch is let for the whole open season rather than by the night. For the park it is guaranteed income booked months in advance, with no changeover work and no marketing cost. The catch is administrative: a pitch that is gone for eight months has to disappear from the nightly diary completely, or sooner or later someone sells it twice.

Why seasonal pitches go wrong on paper

Most parks start by keeping seasonals on a separate list — a spreadsheet, a folder, or the owner’s memory. That works while the numbers are small. It stops working on a bank holiday Friday when someone rings for a pitch, the nightly book shows a gap, and nobody checks the seasonal list before saying yes. The guest arrives to find a caravan already sitting there.

The other common failure is the reverse. Staff are so wary of double booking that they hold back more pitches than are actually let, and the park runs below capacity all summer without anyone noticing.

What a booking system should do with a seasonal pitch

The pitch should be marked as let for its whole season in the same diary that sells nightly stays. Not a note, not a separate list — the same diary. Once it is held, the pitch simply is not offered to anyone searching those dates, on the website or over the phone, because there is nothing there to sell.

The holder’s details, dates and payments should sit with the pitch too, so when the renewal comes round you are not hunting through last year’s paperwork to find who had which plot and what they paid.

Part-season and flexible arrangements

Not every seasonal runs March to October. Some parks sell half seasons, some let a pitch to one holder for the summer and return it to touring stock for the autumn, and some allow a seasonal holder to sub-let quiet weeks back to the park. All of that is fine as long as the dates are held accurately: the pitch comes back into nightly availability the moment the seasonal period ends, automatically, without anyone remembering to release it.

Getting paid without chasing

Seasonal fees are large enough that most parks split them — a deposit to secure the pitch and one or two instalments before the season starts. Handled by hand that means diary reminders and awkward phone calls. Handled properly it means the deposit is taken at the point of booking and the balance is collected automatically on the date you set, with reminders going out on their own.

Renewals are the easy win

Most seasonal holders come back. If last year’s dates, pitch numbers and contact details are already in the system, renewal is a short conversation and a payment link rather than a rebuild from scratch. Parks that keep proper seasonal records tend to fill next year’s seasonals before the current one has finished.

If you run seasonals alongside touring and holiday homes, our caravan park booking system keeps all three in one diary so nothing gets sold twice.

Frequently asked questions

Can a seasonal pitch be sold to a touring guest by mistake?

Not if the seasonal is held in the same diary that sells nightly stays. The pitch is marked as let for its whole season, so it never appears as available to anyone searching those dates, online or over the phone.

Can I sell part seasons or half seasons?

Yes. A seasonal is just a long hold with a start and end date, so you can let a pitch for the summer only, for a half season, or for any period you choose. It returns to nightly availability automatically when the period ends.

How do I collect seasonal fees without chasing people?

Take a deposit when the pitch is booked and set the balance to collect automatically on a date you choose. Reminders go out on their own, so nobody has to make the phone call.

Does the system remember seasonal holders for next year?

Yes. Dates, pitch numbers, payments and contact details stay on file with the pitch, so renewing is a short conversation rather than starting again from a blank page.