Wigwam expanding on back of glamour camping

WIGWAM Holidays is expanding into the south and east of England as the Edinburgh-based cabin company aims to become one of the biggest holiday brands in the UK.

The firm - which already provides about 2 million worth of holidays each year - expects to add a further ten sites before Christmas to its network of 44 locations.

Clients, who include farms and campsites, buy the cabins from the company's Perth-based sister outfit and then license the Wigwam Holidays brand. Scottish timber is used for the structures and the cladding. The company has already supplied a small number of sites in the north and south-west of England and in Wales but is now expanding across the UK.

Locations already using Wigwams south of the Border include the National Diving and Activity Centre at Chepstow, near Bristol.

Managing director Charles Gulland said: "We launched the holidays business ten years ago but it's really coming into its own now with the rising popularity of 'glamping' - or glamorous camping.

"We want to become one of the top holiday brands in the UK over the next four years so that when people think of holidaying at home, they think of Wigwam Holidays."

Gulland plans to launch an online booking service later in the year, which will help to expand the business. He founded All Round Building, which was later renamed the Wigwam Cabin Company, in 1992. The company also builds longhouses and sheilings.

Gulland trained under renowned furniture designer and maker John Makepeace, who set up his Hooke Park College at Parnham House, Dorset, in 1976.

Makepeace's other students have included Viscount Linley, the Queen's nephew.