Since 2006 we’ve always tried to innovate here at Active Away. Using the latest technology, combined with a state of the art tennis programme, we want to be at the forefront of our industry. 2024 is no exception – we have a brand new tennis programme on the horizon as well as some other very exciting developments.
Grab a coffee and explore everything we have in store for 2024….
1. New Winter Destination
We’ve always wanted to lengthen the Active Away season. With Dubai proving popular in the last couple of years, we discussed how we wanted to position the winter season for 2024/25 and came up with this synopsis: Dubai is exceptional, but expensive.
We explored the Canaries as well as further afield, but ultimately we explored what the ITF do with their futures events – they head to Egypt.
Why Egypt? – Egypt is a country known for its hot desert climate, but it holds a special charm during the winter months. With cooler temperatures and less crowded tourist attractions, visiting Egypt in the winter offers a unique and more relaxed experience.
What is the Resort? – We’ve chosen Cleopatra Luxury Beach Resort Adults Only. It’s located in Hurghada, which is an affluent area located opposite Sharm El Sheikh. With flights available from Gatwick, Luton, Manchester and Bristol – it’s very accessible.
Why choose Cleopatra Luxury Resort – Adults Only? – How does 6x tennis courts, all inclusive and completely adults only sound to you?! It ticks so many boxes for us and we think it’ll fit our portfolio perfectly.
Is Egypt safe? – Egypt has taken significant steps to enhance its security measures in recent years. The government has increased police presence at popular tourist sites and implemented strict security checks at airports and hotels. Additionally, local authorities have worked closely with international partners to improve intelligence sharing and counterterrorism efforts.
2. New Tennis Programme
We often get asked ‘what sets you apart from the competition?’ And we have several ways to answer that question – however one of the key ones is our tennis product.
We’ve worked with Louis Cayer since 2019 and he’s revolutionised our programme. As we currently stand we are in talks with Louis and several others about how we move our programme on to a whole new level in 2024. We want every experience with us on court to be outstanding, feel fresh and give you a new way of looking at your doubles game.
Work will begin in November 2023 with our programme set to launch in early 2024. We will have a brand new programme for all of our tennis offerings and I can’t wait to be on court delivering it to you next year.
3. Playing Standard Guide
We are truly proud of our reviews. We operate on a ‘9.78/10’ when asked ‘Would you recommend us?’ This is an incredible standard we work hard to try and beat each year. However one of the most consistent pieces of feedback we have is ‘I didn’t feel appropriately challenged.’
We’ve implemented training measures around how our team can be more effective in group selections, but the truth is – it’s difficult. We will always have someone who is the best player on one of our events and conversely have a player who is the weakest. What we want to try and do is mitigate the wide variance of abilities.
Launched in July 2023, we’ve added our Self-Rating Guide. This guide gives us a far clearer picture of the ability of each individual and allows us to make more informed decisions both before the event and during the event.
We hope with this added step to the booking process it will enable us to reach scores of 9.9/10 – which would be simply unmatched in any industry.
4. New Padel Tennis Holiday Location
How exciting is Padel? It’s the talk of the town at the moment and we absolutely love playing it. The wave of Padel has swept across Europe, with Spain and Scandinavia being the front runners – even knocking down tennis courts to build Padel courts!
We asked ourselves another question; “how do we enter the Padel market?” Our core team are tennis experts and we want them to remain so. Training a team to deliver Padel to the required standard would take a serious amount of time and, at this stage, we believe the Padel market is evolving – not quite ready to support a large volume of bookings. We explored all potential resort options in Europe and landed on one resort – the best padel resort currently available in Europe.
What’s the resort? – The name of the resort is: 4* Oliva Nova Beach & Golf Resort. It’s located in Valencia, Spain. It has 7x Padel Courts, amazing facilities and you can fly in to Valencia or Alicante. It ticks all of the boxes for our short Padel breaks and we have exclusivity for the UK market.
How will it work? – Active Away will be the UK’s exclusive travel provider for trips to Oliva Nova and we will offer both hosted and non-hosted trips to the resort.
Can I find out more? – Yes! My colleague Josh recently put a post together about our partnership with Game4Padel and in turn Oliva Nova. Have a read of that blog here.
5. New Hosts
For several years I believed that the host role was very difficult if not impossible to recruit for. There are so many skills involved, from being an excellent tennis player, highly qualified coach, experienced, organised, personable, friendly, conscientious, proficient on a computer and much more. Finding these high performance individuals was going to be a difficult task.
In 2022, we were fortunate enough to have Josh Wilson join our team followed shortly after by Tom Andrews. Both Josh and Tom proved it was possible to become an Active Away host, which in turn gave us confidence in our ability to grow the business. They are both exceptional individuals and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed their company over the last year.
Both Tom and Josh are leaving us and moving on to pastures new – which being honest left us scratching our heads a little! We had a recent recruitment day in mid-July 2023 and had some absolutely outstanding applicants. Every person who attended the day was excellent and we were very happy with our two new hosts who are joining us from September 2023 – George Cann and Harry Mouratidis. We can’t wait to welcome them to our family and they are very excited to be on a tennis court with you soon.
6. Chiswick Clinic Location
One more consistent question we’ve had is ‘Are there any clinic venues in London?’ We’ve always had some venues that are right on the edge of London, but we also appreciate that a London location would fit the Active Away family very well.
It took some time, but we are now very happy to partner with Virgin Active Chiswick to offer our tennis clinics at this fabulous location. Easily accessible from Barnes Bridge train station – or by car, this location will be a great addition to our portfolio of UK Tennis Clinic offerings. We have dates available now, and you can access some discounts from our 2024 calendar launch.
7. The 2024 Launch
All of the exciting developments above can be accessed from our 2024 Calendar Launch! Each year we launch our calendar alongside some special offers, and this year we’ve gone seriously big. Our best and biggest ever offer means you can be on an Active Away event with a fantastic discount.
2023 – In 2023, we had our biggest ever launch, with some weeks selling out super quickly and us doing nearly half of the financial year’s turnover in launch week!
Current Sign Ups – As we currently stand today (24 July 2023) we have more sign ups than we did at the end of the launch in August 2022, so we are expecting the launch to be a little crazy.
Calendar – We will be revealing our calendar in early August ahead of the booking window opening on the 21st August 2023.
How to Sign Up? – Signing up takes a couple of seconds, just head to our 2024 Launch Page and enter your name/email address to get instant access to the discount codes.
8. Quick Links
- 2024 Launch
- Cleopatra Luxury Beach Resort Adults Only
- Oliva Nova
- Game4Padel Partnership
