Our story
Our
story
Since 1989. In the heart of Benidorm.
This isn't exactly the story of a campsite.
It's the story of two brothers.
It all started quite far from Benidorm.
Juan and Paco were two brothers who, as children, emigrated with their parents from Padul, a small village in Granada, to Germany.
Like many Spanish families of that time, their parents went there to make a living.
They grew up there. They worked there.
Both married Spanish women there.
Paco later returned to Spain and ended up in Benidorm. Juan arrived some time after.
Paco arrived first.
Juan arrived some time later.
The two brothers' paths came together again.
They saw an opportunity.
Even if it didn't look like one.
The Llorca family rented out a campsite that ran like many campsites of that era: mainly Easter week and summer, closed for much of the rest of the year.
The campsite needed a huge amount of work. Tall weeds, streetlights that kept blowing, hardly any maintenance.
Juan and Paco decided to give it a try.
Juan went to live at the campsite.
Literally. Home and work were in the same place.
What if we don't close?
Living at the campsite, some guests started to ask about staying through the winter too.
For the campsite, it meant making use of months that traditionally saw almost no activity.
They tried it.
It worked.
Benidorm's climate made it possible to develop a long-stay winter model, especially among European travellers. Armanello was among the pioneering campsites in the area to bet on staying open through the winter.
7 years later.They buy Camping Arena Blanca.
In 1996, Juan and Paco buy Camping Arena Blanca, in Benidorm.
Meanwhile, Benidorm was changing.
Armanello stayed in the same place while the city transformed around it. Back then there were far fewer campsites; some disappeared, others stayed, and later the sector grew strongly.
One example: Camping La Cala, right on the seafront, disappeared during the intense property development of the early 2000s, when the land was given over to real estate development.
Up to this point, we had recovered.Now, build.
In 2016 the family builds Camping Alicante Imperium from scratch, in Villajoyosa.
This time there wasn't a campsite to fix.
It had to be imagined.
There were never any partners.
It was them.
And a lot, a lot of hours.
For decades the campsites were run directly by them. They have lived by and for the campsites, spending countless hours inside them.
They have also represented the sector through associations and taken part in Benidorm's business and tourism community.
And the next generation arrived.
The way of working changed.
Not the way of listening.
The family stays involved. The modern campsite brings in new disciplines.
Campsites have evolved towards a guest-centred model. Many solutions are designed and built in-house by the team itself: multidisciplinary, young, technical and creative.
Plenty of things are still done with our own hands.
Software, automation, design, engineering, internal systems, applied AI, physical improvements, product, marketing.
Many of our best ideas weren't ours.
A conversation at reception. A suggestion. A complaint. Something someone missed.
Campsites have evolved largely because the family stays involved day to day.
When the family stays inside the campsite, the distance between a good idea and whoever can decide to act on it is very short.
Some things have changed.
Others haven't.
Have changed
- Caravans
- Accommodation
- Technology
- The pools
- Wi-Fi
- The way of booking
- The way of working
Stay the same
- Breakfast outside
- Kids making friends
- Long chats after lunch
- Wearing flip-flops everywhere
- Saying hello to your pitch neighbour
- Coming back the following year
Because modernising a campsite shouldn't mean it stops being a campsite.
Naturally modern.
We're not trying to choose between tradition and modernity. We want to keep being a campsite while constantly asking ourselves how to do it better.
The campsite of always
- Pitches
- Caravans
- Neighbours
- The outdoors
- Families
The campsite of today
- Technology
- Coworking
- Wi-Fi
- Connected laundry
- EV charging
- Guest Care
- Quality
- Data & AI
The story continues.
The guests, the vehicles, the technology, Benidorm and the way we work have all changed. And we're still changing.
Because if we've learned anything since 1989, it's that a campsite is never finished.
There's always something to listen to.
There's always something to improve.
There's always something to do tomorrow.
Naturally modern.
Keep getting to know Armanello