There were over 160 million online reservations booked in 2017 in the United States. While these were for hotels, let’s take a moment to think about this in terms of RV Parks and campgrounds.
There are approximately 15,000 RV Parks in the U.S. and approximately 55,000 hotels. If you use the same hotel to RV Park ratio, RV Parks should be booking approx. 4 million online reservations a year. 4 MILLION. Of those who book online, over 45% of people booked their stay 1-5 days in advance and 24% booked a reservation ON THE SAME DAY AS THEIR ARRIVAL DATE. If your primary goal as a campground manager/owner is to fill those sites, those extra couple of reservations booked the day of could mean the difference between profit and loss.
So, this poses the question, how can you capitalize on online and short notice bookings?
It is easy. Allow people searching for where to stay to book and pay online, even during times when your campground is not open.
We have heard it time and time again. Park managers and owners wake up and start their day calling back those who left messages after closing to reserve stays only to find out they called another campground and successfully booked. You can combat this easily by adding a URL to an away message allowing those looking to stay at your park to book online.
We know what you are thinking, “over booking can happen.” Not with reservation management tools, like Bonfire, that allows you to control inventory by automatically updating which sites are full and for how long. Bonfire also provides you with your own online booking page, making it easy for you to point people to the correct URL for simple online reservations and payments.
Don’t know if Bonfire’s simple-to-use and simple-to-learn reservation and campground management tools are right for you? Schedule a call with our Head Honcho and ask any questions you have.
With or without Bonfire, we hope your park can capitalize on the growing online reservation industry and those looking to book stays at your park.
