It may have been mentioned before and I may have missed it, but this afternoon I had a look at Hymer's Eriba dealership map and there was no blob on the South Coast near Bournemouth. No sign of Leisure First at all as authorised Hymer/Eriba dealers.

Both Highbridges were there, Kool Classics were listed and another mob nearby Campersales of Burgess Hill,who I've never heard of,. Lowdhams, 3 A's, ALV, Red Lion, Knowepark, an NI dealership, Travelworld, Glossop and the Spinney Head Office branch at Holmes Chapel. A couple of those have probably come on board due to the campervan launch, but where are Leisure First?

I'm wondering if new sales are so poor that they've not been willing to take the minimum Hymer require for a dealership and they've reverted to used only.

Hymer themselves are advertising £2,500 off stock vans, Highbridge are stuffed with new Eribas and appear not to be able to shift them. Several dealerships have dropped the brand, some have gone bust. The bubble has well and truly burst.
In the wider caravanning world several dealerships have opted out of selling new vans this year, chiefly because they couldn't see how they could profitably sell the number of new vans the manufacturer's wanted them to take. Atlantic Caravans who have an excellent YouTube presence saw the light a couple of years back and dropped selling Swift Group new vans.

Their website still refers to new Eribas but at a quick shufti I can't see references to authorised dealership which they used to trumpet. As concerned fans maybe we should clarify.

Just looked at the Campersales website - they are only motorhomes and are selling the new Eribacar, hence being on the dealer list. I'm glad that Kool Classics are still there; they are our nearest dealer (and very helpful on parts for older Eribas) - albeit 137 miles away...

The Leisure First website says they are an approved Hymer/Eriba dealer - yet only selling used Eribas now (at much lower prices), plus new Hymer camper vans. And the Gold Edition, that's mostly still silver... hmmmm

What happens to people who purchased new vans and need service and water ingress warranty, if they are not a hymer dealer they cannot do them?

All very mysterious & interesting......................

As I have said for the last 2 seasons we have seen very few new Eribas on the sites we have been on. There have been a number of older models but not masses. On some of the sites not been loads of caravans at all. On 4 of the 5 sites we visited this year there were no other Eribas. At Kendal in late July there was one spanker Troll and one vintage Puck. Are we going to become a rare species?

At York last week lots of motor homes & some camper vans but only a handful of caravans. Interestingly some of these were obviously stored on site and were towed out and set up by the warden, and then put back into storage. Also the site always had three grass pitches for tenters and these have all been converted into hardstandings.

The market seems to be changing.........

MikeT

It's not just Eribas, new caravan and motorhome sales have slowed immensely from what they were 3 or 4 years ago. The trouble is that without a push from the likes of Covid, or some other extraneous factor, the heights of demand from those new to caravanning can't be reached. Demand reduces, value reduces, trade in offers reduce, cost to change expands and so new van sales slump.