A holiday park firm with two Scottish locations has been named the second best in the UK.
Which? surveyed more than 1,700 people about their experiences at UK holiday parks in the last two years, asking them to rate their stays on 11 criteria, including quality of accommodation, customer service, cleanliness, facilities and activities, and value for money.
An overall customer score was then calculated based on overall satisfaction and likeliness to recommend.
All-inclusive Potters Resorts was named the top UK holiday park, while big name holiday park firms Pontins and Butlins scored in the bottom five of the Which? list.
Potters Resorts beat household names to the top of the table, with a customer score of 87%. Operating for more than 100 years, Potters has two all-inclusive resorts in Essex and Norfolk offering a range of accommodation styles and live entertainment.
READ MORE: Small family-run caravan park wins title of 'Best Caravan Park' in Scotland
Visitors awarded Potters the full five stars for the variety of free facilities on offer, the quality of facilities and activities, the quality of the entertainment and communication, as well as four stars for overall customer service, food and drink, value for money and quality of accommodation.
Forest Holidays followed in second place with a customer score of 80%.
With 13 UK locations - including three in Scotland at Artgardtan in Argyll, Glentrees Forest in Peebles and Strathyre in Stirlingshire, Forest Holidays offers woodland stays with hot tubs in a range of accommodation from cabins to treehouses.
The brand received four stars for the quality of accommodation, cleanliness, overall customer service, communication and quality of facilities and activities.
Tied in third place with a customer score of 77% were Bluestone Wales, which is in the Pembrokeshire countryside, and John Fowler Holiday Parks.
Among the other high-scoring firms were Hoburne Holidays with 75% and Waterside Holiday Group with 74%.
Pontins, founded in 1946, took last place with a customer score of 56%, while longstanding rival Butlin’s also found itself in the bottom five, with a customer score of 67% – just ahead of Park Holidays UK at 66%, Away Resorts with 64% and Largo Leisure Parks with a score of 64%.
Naomi Leach, deputy editor of Which? Travel said: “Holiday parks have been a mainstay of British holidays for decades, but with so many options to choose from it isn’t always easy to know which will be the right fit for your family.
“Our latest survey shows that it’s worth looking beyond the best-known names, with smaller and independent resorts offering excellent value for money, great customer service and plenty of onsite entertainment.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here