Sales and rentals soar as people holiday in their homes

BUSINESS is booming for hot tub sales and rental companies as people across Tayside and Fife prepare for a summer at home.

David Torrance, sales manager for Hydropool Scotland, based in Dundee and Glasgow, says sales of hot tubs have rocketed by at least 200% in the last year.

Another local operator reported selling more than 60 tubs a week during March.

David said: “There are a number of reasons we, as an industry, have benefited over the last year.

“People have disposable income as they’re not going on holiday but still want that holiday feeling.

“And instead of going to hotels with hot tubs in them they can get that hot tub feeling in their own back garden.

“People want to have that luxury garden.

“I think the fact more people are buying and using hot tubs means the trend will continue – more and more people know somebody who has a hot tub – and I believe that productivity is going to continue for the industry.

“At the moment we’re doing appointment-only in Dundee so we can observe all the protocols with regard to Covid.

“We’re a high-end hot tub company and we’ve been so busy because we have stock available and we offer a high level of aftercare service.

“Hot tubs are like cars – you can buy cheap models but you get what you pay for,” David added.

“Many people buy from us for therapeutic reasons, health benefits too. And we also take great pleasure in giving the NHS discount when they buy from us because of all the hard work they do.”

Alan Colbert, owner of Hot Tub Hire Scotland in Dunfermline, says he is stunned at how high demand has been overall. Alan believes he could have rented his hot tubs four times over in the last year.

“During the first lockdown we stopped. After checking with the council and getting recommendations from them after a Covid risk assessment, we started up again,” he said.

“We were inundated with requests. More so than any time since we started in 2012. At one stage I had to put up a message on social media saying we’d had unprecedented demand as I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

“We are a small company so I had to spend time working out who could get what in which space and on what day People were saying ‘I’ll take any tub, any date’. It was crazy.”

Alan, who runs the business with his wife Jackie, aims to start hiring again in May. He said: “Christmas and New Year were busy for us. We had a waiting list of people hoping for a cancellation. We had NHS workers who just needed a break. We had families who said ‘well we can’t go on holiday’ so they’d take a tub instead.

“People wanting to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, while there’s such a limited choice of activities to do just now, have also hired from us.

“We’ve had people say they need it for the sake of their minds during lockdown. They want to relax and shut it all out in the safety of their own homes.

“We were lucky to be in a business where we could largely keep going, working outside away from people and using the PPE.”

A spokeswoman for UK trade association for the hot tub industry, BISHTA (British and Irish Spa and Hot Tub Association), said: “Lockdown led to searches for hot tubs in 2020 increasing by more than 650% as we looked for fun ways to fill our time at home.”