Mystery solved as Devon holiday park enters award finals

A mystery guest who booked into Devon’s Ladram Bay holiday park this summer has helped propel it into the finals of the county’s annual tourism awards.

Now the Budleigh Salterton holiday park is looking forward to a glistening gold, silver or bronze accolade when the judges announce their decision later in November.

Ladram Bay‘s “mystery shopper” was an undercover inspector carrying out one of the crucial stages of the judging process for the Devon Tourism Awards.

The visit was one of 120 made to tourism businesses in the county by judges, helping them to whittle down entries to just three in each award category.

Their verdicts on who takes the top spots will be delivered at a VIP awards ceremony at Plymouth’s Guildhall on 23 November.

Ladram Bay – which reached the finals in both 2015 and 2016 – is competing in the Holiday Park of the Year category for which scores of holiday parks in Devon were eligible.

Director Zoe House, a member of the park-owning family, said everyone at Ladram Bay had a special reason crossing their fingers for a top gold result next month:

“In 2018 we are celebrating our seventy-fifth anniversary of the park’s formation, and it would be wonderful to start the year with such an accolade!” she said.

“But even to feature among the top three parks in Devon is an excellent achievement to which we owe a great debt of honour to our fantastic staff.

“An important criterion for these awards is the standard of hospitality which guests receive, and responsibility for delivering this is very much down to our park team,” added Zoe.

From a small cliff-top camping site with its own private beach access, Ladram Bay has grown to become one of Devon’s largest and most celebrated parks.

Guests have use of the park’s extensive facilities, including a recently opened indoor climbing wall as well as a swimming pool complex, and the adventure golf course.

There’s also a restaurant and take-away, a beach-side shack where watersports equipment can be hired, and first-class day and evening entertainment.

Ladram Bay provides a wide range of holiday homes to rent or own, brand new glamping pods, and pitches for touring caravans, motorhomes and tents.

There is more information about Ladram Bay Holiday Park at www.ladrambay.co.uk