Author Archives: Ellie Burke

Each year, Campspot observes substantial booking activity across our platform in March. It’s an exciting time of year as campers look ahead to the summer and fall and make campground reservations for their upcoming excursions. This year, to help campground owners generate even more revenue during this popular booking period, Campspot organized its first ever Biggest Booking Week campaign. This campaign asked campground owners to opt-in by creating a promotion that would run March 14 to March 19 using the code “BIGGEST23.” The results? Better than we could have hoped for! Read on for the results of the campaign and our top four takeaways.

Biggest Booking Week Results and Key Learnings

Nearly 300 Campspot campgrounds participated in Biggest Booking Week. That’s a heck of a lot of awesome camping deals!

Across the Campspot platform, the Biggest Booking Week campaign helped spur over 60,000 campground reservations. That’s equivalent to campers spending 2.3 million hours in the great outdoors!

1. Deals Attract New Customers

Ever been nervous to try something or waited to purchase in case it went on sale? It’s no secret that discounts drive spending behavior, but what’s most interesting for us was the amount of NEW customers that were driven to book trips because of the promotion period. During Biggest Booking Week, parks that participated in the promo code saw nearly a 50% jump in week-over-week bookings on the marketplace and 94% of these bookings were from new customers.

2. Having a Promo Also Drives Non-Promo Bookings

Of course, we were excited to see campers taking advantage of the BIGGEST23 promo code when checking out, but we also saw that non-promo code bookings increased 95% year-over-year for this particular week. A practice referred to as “breakage,” essentially this speaks to customers who are drawn in by the promotion but then end up booking a reservation for a non-promo trip. The lesson here? While you might be “taking a hit” when you promote a discount, you not only stand to gain a higher volume of reservations, but also possibly a boost to non-promo reservations as well.

3. Promos Drive Average Booking Value

Ironically, when campers save, it seems they tend to spend MORE to get the most bang for their buck! During the campaign, we observed the average booking value of a reservation made with BIGGEST23 to be 33% higher than those made without a code from the previous week.

Of course, the type of promotion a campground is offering can influence this behavior as well. Many parks offered a certain percentage off when campers booked a set number of nights. This is an example of a thoughtfully designed promotion that could lead to larger average booking value.

4. Campgrounds Experienced Week-Over-Week Growth Regardless of Participation—But Those Involved Grew More

Of all the bookings that took place on Campspot Marketplace over the campaign’s time period, 25% used the BIGGEST23 promo code. We also saw that participating campgrounds experienced a nearly 50% week-over-week growth in reservations from the week prior, and non-participating campgrounds still grew, too—23% week over week.

Rising tides lift all ships, right? Certainly, but in order to really ride the wave—it pays to play! While this campaign was the first of its kind, we hope to work with our partner campgrounds to create future opportunities just like this one that not only drive more revenue for campgrounds, but help campers discover new destinations, save money, and take more trips.

Thank you to all of our participating partner campgrounds involved in Biggest Booking Week. We’re so proud of what we could accomplish and learn together and we can’t wait to see what we can create together next. For more information on Campspot’s Biggest Booking Week, be sure to check out these reads:

• Campspot Promo Drives All-Time Biggest Reservation Week – RVBusiness 
• ‘Campspot’ Promotion Generates Over 60K Bookings – Woodall’s Campground Magazine 
• Campspot’s First Platform-Wide Sale Drives 2.3M Hours Outdoors & All Time Biggest Reservation Week – News Maker Alert 

Ready to Grow With Campspot?

Ellie Burke is the content & SEO manager at Campspot. Hailing from the Finger Lakes region of western New York, she lives for all things family, food, farming, and wide open spaces. Connect with her on Instagram @ellieburkebooks.

While campground owners across North America are already hard at work preparing for an epic 2023 peak camping season, it’s always helpful to take a moment to look back on how far you’ve come, as well as consider key learnings and insights that will inform your campground business strategy in the year ahead. In that spirit, we’ve crunched some numbers to share an official reca(m)p of the last year.

2022 was an incredible year for campers and campground operators. While the numbers below capture key trends and areas of growth across the industry, what’s equally important is what the figuresreally mean, which, if we had to summarize 2022 in a single word—it’d be more.

• More camping trips
• More time camping
• More exploring far and near
• More revenue driven for campgrounds
• More happy campers

Review the insights below for Campspot’s Year-End Reca(m)p and discover key Campspot features driving revenue for operators, estimated time saved through grid optimizations and online cancellations, the most saved parks on Campspot Marketplace, and more!

2022 was a blast, but we’re only getting started. In 2023, Campspot has BIG things in store for our campground customers.

More Revenue

At the heart of everything we do is our drive to help campground owners reach their business goals, while creating lasting memories for their campers. That’s why in 2023 we will continue to place emphasis on features and business opportunities that drive the most growth for campgrounds.

Optimizations and Automations that Save Time and Seize Opportunities

From Dynamic Pricing and Grid Optimization to Forecast Reporting and Text Messaging, our product is built with time savings and efficiency in mind. In 2023, we’ll remain hyper-focused on our customers and their guests, building features that improve the software, streamline operations, and enhance the experience for both campground operators and campers.

Enhanced Exposure With the Largest Camping-Exclusive Online Travel Agency

Did you know that 92% of customers who book on the Campspot Marketplace are booking at that campground for the first time? Campspot’s Marketplace brings national exposure to your campground for campers planning trips across North America. Many Marketplace customers start shopping on the Marketplace and ultimately book on the campground’s own website, making it a great way to introduce your park to more campers. In 2023, we’ll continue to put marketing dollars behind our customers in new and creative ways to help campers discover your park.

Integrations

Over the last year, we’ve added integrations like Mailchimp and Booking.com in an effort to drive more revenue and improve the ease of use of our product. Campspot customers can expect to see additional partnerships and improvements throughout the coming year that will help you take your business operations to new heights!

 

From all of us at Campspot, thank you for a phenomenal 2022. Here’s to making 2023 a year of continued growth and success. We’ll see you out there!

Ellie Burke is the content & SEO manager at Campspot. Hailing from the Finger Lakes region of western New York, she lives for all things family, food, farming, and wide open spaces. Connect with her on Instagram @ellieburkebooks.

Campspot is committed to helping campground owners provide a transparent, modern experience to their campground guests that exceeds expectations and drives repeat visits. That’s why we’re stoked to share the platform’s newest feature—Online Cancellations.

Online Cancellations on Campspot

Guests now have the ability to cancel their reservation online at any campground that activates this feature. For a visual walkthrough of how this feature works and how to activate it in Campspot, check out the video below.

 

 

More Time, More Revenue, Happier Campers

More Time

When a camper can manage their own reservation to the fullest extent, they no longer have to email or call your campground. This saves time for the camper, but also for you and your management staff.

More Revenue

Transparency is fundamental to meeting a camper’s expectations. A clearly visible and well-articulated cancellation policy allows a camper to read and accept your terms. When they’ve accepted them ahead of time as part of their reservation experience, they know what to expect when they decide to make a change. The associated cancellation fee, then, isn’t a hassle, but an additional service they’ve agreed to pay for in order to have autonomy and flexibility in their camping experience. This fee safeguards your business revenue by ensuring a cancellation does not mean a complete loss of potential earned revenue.

Happier Campers

Campers use your campground for quality time and a chance to escape and relax. The easier it is to manage their visit, and the more their expectations are met, the happier they’ll be. The good news is that most often campers are merely adjusting their trip dates and booking again right away with their new preferences. So, while your business has to manage around their change, you’re still engaging with that camper at a later date.

Meet Camper Expectations

Today’s campers are just like you and me. They’re modern consumers. They order their favorite customized drink ahead of arriving at the cafe with an app. They watch targeted ads (and make impulse buys) on social media based on their most recent actions online. They even pay a monthly fee to have razor blades and shaving cream mailed to their doorsteps.

Today’s consumers have the ability to make a travel reservation online and modify and cancel said reservation from the comfort of their favorite armchair. Campers deserve the same ease. Any campground that enables Online Cancellations on Campspot will allow their campers to quickly make changes on their own without picking up a phone to call the campground.

In order to cancel an existing reservation, guests can:

1. Sign in
2. Click their account email and select, “Reservations”
3. Locate their reservation and select, “View Details”
4. Click the “Cancel Reservation” button
5. View a cancellation summary that includes the reservation total as well as the cancellation fee that the park has listed. At the very bottom, guests will see a “Total Refund Due”
6. Click “Continue” and receive an email where guests must confirm the cancellation in order to complete the process.
7. That’s it!

Deliver an Exceptional Experience

When campers can manage their reservation quickly and on their own, that positive experience becomes part of their overall perception of your campground, business, and brand. A frictionless reservation process is an important part of their overall impression and when less time is spent on the phone or communicating back and forth about the guest’s desires—more time can be spent going above and beyond for your guests in ways that make their stay truly memorable.

How to Get Started

1. Ensure your campground cancellation policy is up to date
2. In Campspot, navigate to Rules > Policy > Cancellation Policy
3. Activate Online Cancellations in Your Campspot Portal
4. Scroll to the bottom and toggle the checkmark under Online Cancellations
5. Click save changes
6. Get started!

Ready to get going but not sure how to write a cancellation policy?

Read Next: How to Write an Online Cancellation Policy for Campgrounds 

Please reach out to your success manager or support with any questions. Log in now to enable online cancellations today.

 

Ellie Burke is the content & SEO manager at Campspot. Raised in the Finger Lakes region of western New York, she lives for all things family, food, farming, and wide open spaces. Connect with her on Instagram @ellieburkebooks.