Honeybells is a family run business that was born from the love of camping under canvas. Founded in 2010, Honeybells has been on an incredible journey over the past decade, establishing itself as one of the most revered luxury Glamping service providers in the whole of Europe; fulfilling the requirements of everything from celebrating weddings to some of biggest festivals in the world.
The Honeybells adventure started when founders and owners, Ross and Sam, saw an opportunity in the then up-and-coming Glamping marketplace and decided to bet on themselves to succeed. We asked Ross how it all started and he reminisced, “Well, we decided to go for it and bought a single tent off eBay. We decided to launch with a pretty basic one page website that wasn’t up to much compared to what we have today. Luckily, interest didn’t take too long to gain momentum and we soon had a few bookings in place with local customers who wanted to rent the tent for a few nights at a time”.
Sam remembers the exact date of the first job for a quite remarkable reason, explaining that “Ross went and assembled the tent for the first time for a lovely lady who lived nearby, just 2 days before I was taken into hospital and gave birth to our middle child Oliver! We couldn’t imagine our lives without him, Charlie and Sienna (the couple’s other children) but it really was a crazy time looking back on things!”. An unforgettable time in the couple’s and business’s life, it certainly does make the date of the business’s creation an easy one to remember!
Both Ross and Sam remain heavily involved with the day to day business operations and have taken full control of everything Honeybells related over the past few months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite furloughing the rest of the team, the business has remained busy and the dynamic duo have had a number of things to manage, most of all, refunding or rolling over customer bookings for events that have been cancelled or postponed in 2020. In Sam’s own words “It hasn’t been a nice experience having to refund or roll over bookings as we’d like to be at and enjoying all these amazing events as much as the customer would. However, the majority of our customers have been wonderfully understanding and supportive throughout the process, which has made things a lot easier to stomach”.
Like many other businesses, 2021 is going to an extremely important year and Honeybells is already firmly focused on making sure that the year is the best that it can be. When asked about future endeavours, Ross had the following to say; “It’s been nice to take some time to reflect on the last 10 years but we are certainly gearing up for next year and I’m certain that it will be the busiest we’ve ever had, which I personally cannot wait for! The schedule already looks stacked and along with the busy summer, we’ve got some new elements related to the business that we are looking to launch – Mainly, our new retail shop outlet and a brand new product we’re hoping to introduce; which I’m especially excited about”.
Alongside the full time members of staff that make Honeybells what it is, are the ‘seasonal staff’ that have come on over the years to help with making the busy summers far more manageable and enjoyable. Usually comprising of local students who are back from university for the summer, the seasonal staff are essential to the success of the business and have never failed to amaze Ross and Sam with their approach to hard work and positive attitudes. From the bottom of their hearts, Ross and Sam are “incredibly grateful to every member of staff that has helped Honeybells to achieve all that it has achieved, it could not have been done without each and every one of you, so thank you all”.
