Staying on top in the staycation game

"We stress to our clients that they have to think about providing the highest quality of accommodation and with a sense that it is ‘unique to place’.”

Thinking ‘outside the box’ is important too.

“Group accommodation is increasingly popular,” she adds.

“So if you have outbuildings that could be converted to provide communal spaces for 15-25, plus private areas too, you could be on to a winner.

"Are you just offering accommodation, or could you move into the wellbeing-holiday sector by, say, creating a space that could be used as a yoga studio?”

It is also all about ways of bringing the outdoors in.

Ms Queen adds: “Fire bowls, pizza ovens, outdoor kitchens – they are all ways of enabling your guests to spend more time outside but without them having to have the practical hassles of building a camp fire.

Anything that enables them to make the most of outdoor spaces whatever the weather is a good idea, too – open shelters around cooking areas, for instance."

Luxury accommodation

Someone who has come up with a winning, unique formula is Caroline Millar.

Caroline and her husband Ross launched The Hideaway Experience in 2005 offering boutique-style, 5-star lodges for couples from the family’s 263-hectare beef and sheep farm on the Sidlaw hills, 15 minutes’ drive from Dundee.

“There is a tradition of farms offering accommodation, but these days, consumers really are wanting new bespoke experiences and a higher level of service,” she says.

“We offer niche, adults-only luxury accommodation with high-end extras such as hot tubs and cocktail bars as standard, but we have found other ways to add to the guest’s holiday."

For an additional cost, Hideaway Experience guests are offered personalised farm tours.

She adds: “These give us the chance not just to up-sell and increase revenue from our point of view, but to connect consumer and land, too.

"We show guests round the farm, explain how we produce Scotch beef, Scotch lamb and malting barley for whisky, then we will drive them into the Sidlaws and leave them with a picnic made up of local produce – smoked salmon; cold roast beef from the local butcher, a nip of whisky.

"They can sit and enjoy their food while looking out over the land it has come from. It is a gentle, friendly way to bridge the gap between consumer and producer."