Campsite booking platform JetCamp secures €500k in funding

Netherlands: Delft-based online camping guide JetCamp, which lists campsites and holiday parks for bookings, has announced that it has raised €500,000 in investment to accelerate its growth in the European camping market, currently valued at €5 billion.

Hotel and apartment operator and tourism product developer, Falkenstein Michaeler Tourism Group [FMTG], and Cunningham Holding led the funding round — the company’s second since launching in late 2019.

Claiming to be the largest platform of its kind in Europe, JetCamp lists almost 23,000 verified campsites and holiday parks across the continent and in 2021, it attracted more than four million tourists despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

JetCamp co-founder Erwin Hoevenaar said that the European camping sector was one of the fastest-growing segments in tourism, and that it could be partly attributed to the pandemic.

He told Pretwerk.nl: “On the one hand, we see that more and more people want to spend their holidays close to home, and, on the other, that campsites and holiday parks are investing heavily in new [glamping] accommodations and in greening and sustainability.”

Andreas Falkensteiner of FMTG said: “Campsites are a growth market and a product that we have to experience and strategically deploy as investors. The JetCamp team led by Erwin and Roderik [Verburg] has the right DNA and has created a low-cost and scalable platform in a very short time with the right basis for exponential growth.”

Last week, it was revealed that San Francisco-based outdoor stays booking platform Hipcamp had acquired British online camping brand Cool Camping from Tripadee, following a $57 million Series C funding round 12 months earlier, which will pave the way for further expansion into Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia.

Meanwhile, other brands have also been benefitting from the increased exposure of the outdoor stays segment by announcing investment rounds. This includes nature travel startup Campanyon [€1.5 million], camping app The Dyrt [$11 million], camping marketplace Wildpoint [£265,000], and portable accommodation startup Jupe [$9.5 million].

This story was originally posted on 13 January 2022 on ShortTermRentalz.com

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