The European campsite and outdoor hospitality sector is attracting increasing levels of institutional investment and entering a new phase of modernisation and consolidation, say industry experts.
There have been several Opco/Propco splits in the French campsite market, which typically deliver a six percent Propco yield, said Luis Amézola, associate director of RE investment and hospitality at Meridia Capital, and similar processes are underway elsewhere.
In March 2026, in the first example of a sale and operational leaseback in Italy’s open‑air tourism sector, Club del Sole sold five seafront holiday villages in Emilia Romagna to Swiss Life AM France and leased them back on 20‑year fixed commercial leases, freeing up capital for modernisation and growth.
Consolidation
Since 2020, Meridia Capital, an alternative investment fund manager in Spain, has used a dedicated Article 8 fund to transform traditional campsites into modern, design-led, open-air destinations.
“It’s a super fragmented family-owned market, often under-invested, so there was a clear opportunity to consolidate the sector, create a portfolio and bring in a more lifestyle approach,” said Amézola.
Today, the company - known as wecamp - has 16 sites with more than 3,000 units in Spain and Portugal. From 2024 to 2025, wecamp doubled its annual revenue to €20m, and has secured €50m in financing from Banco Santander.
Growing demand
The Iberian investment case is underpinned by constrained supply due to planning restrictions, and strong growing demand for nature-based travel, said Amézola.
“In Spain you cannot create more campsites in good locations. Even in ten years, the supply will decrease. At the same time, the demand for camping is growing year-on-year, also from people who have never done it before,” he explained.
The sector’s resilience is another draw. Campsites were the first hospitality segment to recover post‑Covid, according to Amézola, surpassing 2019 performance levels as early as 2022; and more than half of wecamp’s demand is domestic, providing a hedge against geopolitical volatility and cost-of-living crises.
Product mix
Spanish law allows for a 50/50 split between traditional pitches for tents and semi-permanent mobile homes. The latter generate higher ADRs and more stable revenue. Operators are also introducing ‘dry tents’ - upscale, semi‑permanent tents with hotel‑style bedding and amenities - which can be installed in summer and removed in winter to adapt to seasonal demand.
This product versatility has allowed wecamp to target multiple customer segments: families in peak season, long‑stay Scandinavian guests in winter, plus corporate, MICE, sports, and events groups in the shoulder months.
“There is a big opportunity to de‑seasonalise these assets,” said Amézola. “Summer is always full, but the real alpha comes from building demand in the off‑season.”
Anne-Marie Auriault, director - asset management at RoundShield, agreed: “The product mix is one of the most decisive levers in outdoor hospitality as it directly shapes revenue and ancillary income, seasonality, operational complexity and, ultimately, profitability.”
Exit market
Sun-soaked campsites are just one aspect of outdoor hospitality; cabins, pods, domes, yurts, and other low-impact structures are typically found in forests and mountainous regions.
RoundShield invested €50m in the German and Swiss campsites platform Lodgyslife to fund
the acquisition and integration of a portfolio of campsites across southern Germany.
The business and its camping destinations has since been acquired by private-equity-backed pan-European operator First Camp, allowing RoundShield to fully exit its position.
The investment delivered a gross IRR of 32.5% and a gross multiple of 1.7x for investors, according to a RoundShield press release.
Outdoor infrastructure
Despite lower costs per key for FF&E compared to hotels, novice investors should not overlook the infrastructure needs that come with outdoor hospitality.
“People underestimate the complexity,” said Amézola. “If you need to build a sewage line or utilities trench for one kilometre across a 10‑hectare site, that costs a lot of money.”
Maintenance costs are generally higher than in hotels due to the size of campsites and holiday villages and their exposure to the elements. Weather dependency is also a concern. Construction and upgrades must be carried out in winter when rain can postpone work.
Even so, GOP margins are attractive and can exceed 50 per cent, higher than many traditional hospitality segments.
Finance bottleneck
The investment appetite for European outdoor hospitality is strong and wide-ranging, as evidenced by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) taking a minority stake in European Camping Group.
Yet financing remains the primary obstacle to faster institutionalisation. Mainstream banks in Spain and elsewhere are still reluctant to underwrite campsites, treating them neither as pure real estate nor as fully recognised hospitality assets.
“When we buy a hotel, we can leverage to 60 to 70 percent easily,” said Amézola. “Banks are more reluctant with campsites. They finance on cash‑flow multiples - four to five times EBITDA - rather than LTV. For a build‑up strategy, where today’s EBITDA is nothing compared to what you’re going to get in four years, that’s one of our biggest challenges.”
The hostel example
Alternative lenders, such as RoundShield, are filling the gap, but at a higher cost of capital. Auriault noted that traditional banks view the sector as still at an early stage of institutionalisation.
“Banks will always be conservative. They need to see a consolidated industry before they underwrite it like hotels,” said Auriault
It will take five to ten years before mainstream banks treat outdoor hospitality as an established asset class, mirroring the trajectory of hostels, which only gained widespread bank acceptance after a decade of brand consolidation and operational standardisation.
“I think we’re doing the job for the next ones coming into the market because we spend so much time with the banks, educating them, getting them to understand how the business model works,” said Amézola.
The opportunity to turn assets at risk of becoming obsolete into successful and sustainable year-round venues is strong, he said: “We can attract not only camping demand but also hotel demand for these types of assets because they are super well-located; the best beachfront locations or very close to national parks, I mean, the locations are incredible.”
All quotes taken from the ‘Capitalising on the outdoors: camping, glamping and open air hospitality’ panel at IHIF EMEA 2026 in Berlin. The session was moderated by industry expert Pierre Edouard Vintrou.