IT started out as a holiday to a campsite in Italy.

But now a Dutch family are one of the leading innovators for the glamping trend across Europe.

Selectcamp, which has a head office in Birchwood, has been nominated for a British Travel Award for the second year running.

So Weekend went to meet the team as well as director Pascal van de Loo at The Breeze business park to hear the story so far as the company celebrates 25 years.

Clare Parkins, from Appleton, runs the Warrington office alongside sales administrator Freya Rush, a former Bridgewater High pupil, and marketing agent Scott Bakkor, a former Great Sankey High student.

They book travellers into Selectcamp’s 54 sites with options like the Cube Suite, which is like a boutique hotel room in a camping environment, and the Airlodge, a wooden two-storey structure where you can sleep under the stars.

It is a far cry from caravans and muddy tents but it all started when Pascal’s brother Loek fell in love with camping when he went to Sereno campsite in Lake Garda.

He enjoyed it so much that a year later he got a student job on site and ended up meeting his wife Chicca there. Loek eventually bought a piece of land and it went from there.

Pascal said: “One day some people sold a tent to him as they didn’t want to take it when they went back home.

“Then people were coming and asking if there was accommodation and he said: ‘Yes I’ve got this tent for you’.

“He continued to rent out this tent and thought this might be a good business model. So one tent became 10 tents and it grew in 25 years to 2,500 accommodations across Europe.”

Loek, whose sons Alessandro and Leonardo also work for the company, then started to design his own tents based on customer feedback which has now evolved into a team innovating new glamping concepts each year.

The latest is the country-style Safaritent with a wooden terrace and the ability to bring the outdoors in by rolling up the terrace.

In the first few years Loek opened more sites around Lake Garda then he went to the Adriatic Coast and then Croatia and France and so on.

Now more than 100 people work for Selectcamp at 54 sites and five sales offices in the UK, Poland, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

A lot of their bookings for their 15 types of accommodation come from the UK which is why they opened a Warrington office, which was originally in Fearnhead, seven years ago.

The most popular destination for UK customers are the moment is Croatia.

Pascal, who joined the company in 2013 after previously working for ING bank, said: “We don’t know what’s going to happen with Brexit but we’ve seen a lot of growth in the UK market.

“It’s a general European trend that people want more comfort but at the same time they might not want an apartment or hotel where they think it’s too expensive or a bit anonymous.”

Clare, a former Cardinal Newman RC High School student, added: “You get a barbecue and people like to eat on the terrace or go to one of the restaurants on the campsite.

They like the option and freedom of that. People like the idea of being close to nature while still having their home comforts.”

It may be for comfort, it may be to create a different experience but sometimes glamping concepts are designed for practicality like the Airlodge which is built over two floors to save space.

Pascal said: “It also has to be in the right spot because if you put an Airlodge on the wrong type of campsite it’s not half as good as it is if you place it in the woods and you feel like you’ve got your own castle.

“And if you put 10 of them together you feel like you’ve got your own street. We also look at hotels because usually the hotels in the big cities are very creative with space.”

Selectcamp has been nominated for the Best Medium Sized Camping and Mobile Holiday Company in the British Travel Awards.

They came away with bronze last year and will find out if they have won on September 30 when the public vote ends.