Héctor Fina was dedicated to creating glamping areas at festivals. He was one of the first to bring this modality to Spain but, suddenly, all festivals disappeared. With the arrival of the pandemic and the halt of the entire sector, Fina wondered what to do with all the glamping material he had. "And then I looked towards the world of camping."
And that's how he met those who would later become his partners at HolaCamp. "I saw that camping was a sector with potential, and my partners were also looking for opportunities," but not from the outside, but from within the sector itself. Alejo Olano came from a family group with three campsites, and Alfonso Leprevost had a campsite in Sitges, and wanted to make it grow. "We met, by circumstance and by chance, and we asked ourselves: why don't we set up a brand to grow with the same values and objectives?"
That's how HolaCamp was born in 2023, dedicated to the management of campsites to transform them and provide them with more comfort. The company, to which Martin Becker also joined as a partner, values the fact of having emerged within the sector itself: "Our strength is that we come from camping, we carry it in our DNA." In fact, as Fina explains, they talk about their proposal as the "next generation of campsites, because in some way it is the camping of the grandparents' and parents' generation brought to the present moment."
This continuity represents at the same time a transformation, which starts from the premise that camping brings together much of what today's traveler seeks —nature, freedom, security, family spaces...— but can offer more comfort. "We seek to convert this traditional camping into what the client now asks for," which means incorporating more comfortable accommodations and more professional services without losing the essence of the model, according to him.
This is where mobile homes, tiny houses and glamping proposals appear, but also pitches, which continue to be an important part of the business. In its campsites, HolaCamp seeks to make the experience closer to that of a hotel: hotel-standard mattresses, bedding, towels and services, set in the natural environment of a campsite: "We take the best of both worlds," Fina summarizes.
The same philosophy applies to services. Swimming pools, family activities, pet spaces, and safe environments are part of a proposal that also wants to attract families accustomed to hotels or apartments. But HolaCamp's approach to hotel standards is not limited to accommodation; it also extends to management, as behind the campsites there is a complex management structure with revenue, pricing, marketing, call center, and, above all, data. "We are obsessed with data," Fina acknowledges.
At the company's headquarters, above Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona, about 60 people work, providing service to the entire network. The staff includes profiles common in the sector as well as more unexpected ones, such as an architecture team that designs new accommodations — their tiny houses, manufactured in Sabadell, have been one of the group's bets this year, during which they have produced nearly 200. There are also engineers, and mathematicians and physicists, who are mainly in charge of data analysis and pricing. "We have people solely focused on data. Not just to put them in order, but to interpret them, and then be able to execute strategy based on these data."
With this model, since it began operating in 2024, HolaCamp has taken over the management of 16 campsites, and aims to reach 20 before the end of this year. To do so, the company works with different formulas to incorporate new establishments, such as long-term rental, purchase options, acquisition, and, recently, franchising.
Once management is assumed, an investment phase usually follows, which can be around 4 million euros in campsites where the most room for improvement is detected. The goal is to bring them to a higher level and grow the business. According to Fina, campsites that join HolaCamp record an average growth of 29%.
HolaCamp's growth also involves the entry of capital, as the company is working on a joint venture with an investment fund that will allow it to strengthen its capacity to reach new campsites. The operation comes after the Belgian fund Amavi Capital became a partner last year, with a capital increase of 10 million euros, an investment with which the fund acquired 20% of the company.
“HolaCamp operates very much like a startup. We work in a very traditional sector, but with a very modern way of functioning,” both in internal management and in the relationship with clients. “We have a very high level of sophistication in all the management and analysis part. We are constantly analyzing everything; every euro, we analyze it.” And, euro by euro, this year they expect to bill 40 million.
To continue propelling this growth, the challenge is to make campsites operate beyond the summer. HolaCamp is focusing on the mid-season, with an eye on a demand that is increasingly looking for alternatives to the hottest months. The company is also expanding its presence towards the mountains and northern Spain, with Asturias, Galicia, and other destinations gaining appeal due to rising temperatures.
Thus, HolaCamp is paving the way to adapt traditional camping to the current moment through comfort, technology, and management, while maintaining its attractions of connection with nature and spaciousness. This next generation seeks to update this way of traveling, to make it accessible to more people, and to grow HolaCamp even further.