Glamping franchise Wigwam Holidays is glamorising the camping industry

Sitting behind a desk in an enclosed office space never interested Charles Gulland. In fact it was what made him realise his true passion – being outdoors. Abandoning his cushy job as an accountant, he fuelled his dream of making people understand the benefit of spending time in the great outdoors and hence Wigwam Holidays, the glamping franchise, was born in 2000. “In the age of an unprecedented choice of being surrounded by technology, depression and anxiety are being recorded at record levels,” he says. “And we believe that you need to break free from that and get outside into nature and just take time to reconnect with yourself. I believe that people are happier outdoors and [I’m] very passionate about it.””

Gulland has harboured this enthusiasm since childhood but it only manifested after his checkered chartered accountancy career. Looking back, after he left his accountancy career and was searching for “something new and interesting” outside of the finance space, the design of buildings piqued his interest. This resulted in him getting a qualification from a college in Dorset and immediately taking on the role of a designer at the Countryside Commission for Scotland. He worked on developing low-cost lodging for the country’s long-distance footpaths such as on the West Highland Way. Projects like these inspired his career in the camping sector. “I came up with a sustainable wooden building made of timber, which we very quickly started calling a wigwam and that was the first camping pod anywhere at all,” he recalls. And with this, in 1992, he launched his first construction and design company: All Round Buildings.

Around that time, Gulland started working with a business coach who helped him truly understand what his company must be centred on. “It made me really think why I was in business and took me on a journey back to my childhood and that’s where the core purpose came from,” he remembers. “And it was the belief – which I still have – that it’s really important to get outside, light a fire, look at the stars, get the wind blowing through your hair and switch off technology.” This indeed was the seed which grew over time and eventually led to Wigwam Holidays’ launch in 2000. “That’s when I realised that we weren’t just a building company but actually also a holiday company,” he declares.

At the time when Gulland launched the novel concept of glamorous camping, or glamping, there wasn’t anything like it, he claims. “If you went to France there was always this idea that you could go to a campsite and live in tents but not in this country,” Gulland argues. “In Wales, they played around with canvas teepees but there wasn’t anything like glamping. The idea was just being born and we were definitely ten to 15 years ahead of time.””