Backing British Businesses – CamperVanTastic

CamperVanTastic is a family business which was founded in 2007 by Steve and Kate Lumley during a European road trip with their two young children.

Based in London, CamperVanTastic provides luxury campervans and motorhomes to hire for adventures in the UK and Europe. It also has an online store which offers specialist campervan equipment and accessories.

Being experienced and seasoned campervaners the team ensure every campervan comes fully equipped with all the camping accessories needed for the perfect campervan holiday. The CamperVanTastic crew includes a highly skilled team of experienced Adventure Consultants who have hands on knowledge of campervanning and touring across the UK and Europe.

Like so many businesses, the Coronavirus and ensuing lockdown of the country gave the business many challenges.  Business ground to a virtual halt with only minimal hire income from Key Workers and those who needed to isolate to support relatives.

The easing of restrictions, however, came quite quickly and having your own campervan for a holiday suddenly had broad appeal in the climate of social distancing, limited overseas travel and the desire for independence.

During these challenges the team had a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve but had trouble channelling energy in the right direction at the right time. This is where Newable’s social impact team came in, with a new programme designed specifically to assist London based small businesses navigate through the national economic crisis.  Our team helps business owners modify or sustain their business processes and delivery in this climate of socio-economic uncertainty.

CamperVanTastic’s adviser, Julian Blick served as a sounding board and provided backing to galvanise the team’s ideas and strategy allowing them to focus on the critical decisions. These included balancing the merits of different Bank lenders, and government initiatives such as CBILS and the Bounce Back scheme. Challenging supply lines also meant for difficult conversations with suppliers and customers as the team sought to meet expectations and sales targets to rebuild the business.

“It is fair to say that these have been the most challenging trading conditions in a lifetime and having begun in a recession and known nothing but obstacles to climb, we found having Julian Blick as our Newable Business Resilience Advisor at the start of our recovery was a tremendous support.”