Well what a crazy few days…..
It all started last Wednesday with a mad dash up to London heathrow and a short stay at the Holiday Inn M4 in order to cath an early flight to Stockholm.

Up before dawn and down to Terminal 3 - great things these self-service check-in desks!

Met up with Ros Pritchard - the Director General of the British Holiday Homes & Parks Association (BH&HPA) and then a short flight to Stockholm.

Stockholm - old town

We have been working with the BH&HPA for nearly two years now - consulting on various IT and web projects as well as writing for the bi-monthly journal for Holiday Park owners.

Earlier on in the year, Ros asked me if I would like to write the Internet Strategy for EFCO&HPA - the European Holiday Parks Association that is made up of 23 European Asscoaitions and around 25,000 campsites and holiday parks.

Wow - what a task - three months hard work consulting with Association members across Europe and then pulling a Strategy together that would see EFCO&HPA take it’s website presence into 2011.

The Stockholm visit was the culmination of the Strategy and my chance to present the paper to the Board.

After a whistle stop tour around old town Stockholm I was introduced to the Board members and then we enjoyed a great evening out - starting with the legendary Ice Bar and then a great dinner in the atrium of Stockholm’s National Museum - I don’t know how Lars managed to arrange that one - but it was superb.

Friday arrived and I was on - a 2 hour presentation of the project findings and introducing the Strategy. All went very well - me just rembering to slow down between each slide whilst Linda translated into French.

Well, the presentation couldn’t have gone better. Lots of great feedback and enthusiasm for taking things forward. There is a lot of work ahead for the Association and it’s members but with a domain like www.campingeurope.com under its belt it is off to a good start.

Fun at the Best of British Holiday Parks Conference

I don’t think my suitcase had a chance to recover much on Saturady before it was off up the motorway to Windermere in the Lake District for the Best of British Holiday Parks General Meeting.

I had been asked to present a session on Online Marketing and Social Media and how it was impacting on holiday parks. These guys are already switched on as respresented in the conference room were 50 of the top 5 star holiday parks in the UK.

The session went brilliantly and everyone was feeling pretty “geared up” for taking on Facebook and Twitter. What I wasn’t quite expecting was one young lady who was sat in the front row who had gotten herself so enthused - she jumped up out of her seat and proceeded to run around the conference room.

Never happended to me before - but what a great self-expression from someone that just couldn’t sit still long enough to want to get involved with Social Media!!

Anyway, back to work with a bump now and catching up with the multitude of emails!