YALA EXCLUSIVE A Luxury Tent for Now YALA luxury canvas lodges has created a new division focused on the high luxury end of the tented structures market. Steph Curtis-Raleigh caught up with the new Managing Director of this division, Marcel Veenhuizen, to find out more.
YALA is an established name in the tented structures sector and despite being renowned for the comfort and quality of its range, the company began to receive more enquiries for more expensive and exclusive models. “Our own network of dealers and agents worldwide were reporting back that they were in conversation with developers and large corporates who were willing to buy for more exclusive resorts, which were looking for eye-catching tent structures,” says Marcel. “This is why we created a new range for this sector. And our inhouse design studio can help developers and resort owners with concept development, not only for the glamping tents but also for the venue structures.” An interesting side effect is that our customers see an increase in guests in all their tents, just because they have these high end glamping structures on their site.
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YALA’s Exclusive range includes four models from a two-person tent for hotels and similar resorts through to the six-person Supernova villa. All tents offer guests the luxury of a 5-star boutique hotel. “We spent a lot of time designing and engineering these models. We first developed them two years ago and then we learned from the first installations and went back and engineered them further and made them even more stable,” says Marcel. “We build them on a metal frame as some customers want to put them in remote areas and so we needed a stronger frame and we wanted them to be able to withstand an even greater wind force. We are extremely proud of the result, a uniquely designed glamping tent that offers guests the ultimate holiday feeling.” YALA currently has projects all over the world, “Mostly we work with local teams in whatever region we are installing the tents,” says Marcel. “We send over a YALA team
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with two supervisors to help build the tents as they are complex structures. Then we employ a local team of around 4-6 people to help.” Maintenance of the Exclusive range is not a lot different than with the glamping tents from the other YALA ranges. “These tents are very low maintenance indeed,” says Marcel. “The only thing you need to do is to oil the zippers once a year!” Rain showers should keep the canvas clean as the quality of the innovative canvas that YALA uses doesn’t require much more looking after. “If there is a very heavy snowfall, we would just advise that operators check the load is not too heavy,” adds Marcel. The incredible Supernova will take about two weeks to construct, depending on how level the terrain is. The preparation is mostly carried out by the site owner in advance of the team arriving to erect the lodges. The team requires that electricity and plumbing are
