If you attended the webinar between Jerry King and Lane Conner, thank you. We had a great time answering your questions (scroll to the bottom for additional resources we spoke about during the Q&A) and chatting about all things park management.
If you missed it, don’t worry. Below we recap the best parts and expand on questions we were asked by attendees.
Watch the full 35 minute chat below.
Chapters:
3:35 Growth over the last few years
3:59 Growth and audience sifts from COVID
5:26 Trends in Technology
8:16 Must Haves, Digital Presence
12:40 Must have operational software
14:33 Payment systems
21:39 Comparing software and payment processors
24:35 Recap
26:05 Q&A
The Speakers:
Jerry King, Bonfire’s Head Honcho, has had over 15 years of management experience within the hotel restaurant and lodging industry, as well as 20 years of camping and backpacking experience. After moving into the tech space, Jerry decided to marry his love for hospitality and camping with his love for technology. Jerry has been the CEO of Bonfire for over 6 years, growing it to a reservation management software trusted by hundreds of campgrounds and RV parks.
Lane Conner doesn't have as much camping experience. His version of camping is going to the courtyard Marriott. However, he is currently helping his mom buy an RV. Lane’s experience, however, is in the payments space, which makes him vital to this conversation. He's the co-founder of Blue Star Payment Solutions and has 10 plus years experience as a payment executive while also serving on the board of several startups in the financial industry.
The Topic:
In this webinar, our focus was all about preparing your campground or RV park for a new generation of campers.
The Recap:
Shifts due to the pandemic:
With the pandemic, a lot of things have changed. Most importantly, the use of technology, as well as just the access to different travel options throughout the world. These, along with other trends, have pushed the camping world into a new era. So you're going to see a large change in the demographics as well as your overall volume of campers and interest in camping.
Camping reservations increased 25% last year. Just in one year, it's amazing growth, when over the past couple of years the industry has grown five, six, or seven percent each year. 46% of the growth was from first-time campers.
Typically, it is far more expensive to get a new customer than bring back a regular. But with those kinds of growth numbers - 46% new customers - it's essentially free money. Camping has been an option for people to get out, take their family, and potentially even work remotely.
Young professionals are going out and buying a van, renting an RV, and taking a couple of months and going to an RV park. They are becoming a seasonal camper because if there's WiFi and the great outdoors, which is considered the safest place to be right now, it’s a win-win.
Click here to read about trends we are seeing due to COVID-19.
Trends in technology:
It is becoming necessary for your guests to be able to access WiFi in some form or fashion during their camping experience. Technology is starting to affect an industry where 10 years ago, it may not have mattered too much. Statistics we have seen stated 58% of campers say that technology will directly influence where they go to stay.
Click here to read about how to extend the WiFi at your campground or RV Park.
Accessibility:
When we say accessibility we don’t mean location but in terms of a guests’ ability to find and book camping reservations online. Platforms like Bonfire allow campground and RV park owners and managers to implement that for their operations.
Technology enables accessibility, and its adoption is directly affecting the developments of this industry. Like I mentioned before, the camping consumer is mobile and has more freedom to travel. They only need to be equipped to book a site.
Digital Presence:
Which comes to booking your site. You need to have to have a website. It doesn’t have to be a ground-breaking work of digital genius, it just needs to exist. No campground or business in this day and age can function without it.
While you can do physical marketing - flyers, promo cards on windshields, word of mouth - having a digital presence is a cost-effective and efficient route to reaching more people. Having the digital channels to be able to take those reservations is the next step.
An obvious must-have is an email address. People need to be able to reach you. Social media is also a great means to amplify your message and market directly to potential customers, new campers, and even regular guests.
Word of mouth is one of the most powerful drivers of new customer adoption in any industry - and it can go much further online. Digital reviews not only provide a free source of marketing, but also a free source of feedback. All you have to do is ensure an exceptional experience and troubleshoot any mention of a sub-par experience.
Click here to read our marketing 101 for campgrounds and RV Parks.
Reservations:
You may have a marina, a live event venue, or other attractions that make your campground enjoyable, but operational software and technology is your MVP for customer satisfaction and success. Whether it's to manage the reservations you currently handle or to scale for future growth, you have to have a system in place.
Along with managing reservations and payments, an online booking page allows you to take reservations in advance. Each season, you get your money faster and have operational capital to build your business on.
Payment Systems:
The digital economy has grown. So too has the rise of credit cards and debit cards. We're entering more and more of a cashless society and retailers have had to change the way they do business in order to accommodate the ever-changing way people interact with commerce.
Great examples of this are Amazon, Facebook, Uber; companies that were not around 25 years ago and are household names today. Consumers have shifted the way they purchase, largely to online shopping, and businesses have to evolve to stay relevant.
So what does all this have to do with the camping industry? Again, it goes back to the webinar: how to stay relevant and to update what you do to attract that new breed of campers.
One of the ways you can do that is with payments. When you think about whether to accept credit and debit cards or not, consider these four things.
Firstly, and probably the most critical, is credit and debit cards will increase your amount of sales and people will spend more. The average credit and debit purchase is $112 and consumers spend 83% more when using card versus cash. Even higher in the travel and leisure industry. Often when people go on vacation or get on the road, they don't want to carry a lot of cash.
Secondly, when you cater to customers’ needs and make the experience more efficient, they are more likely to return.
Thirdly - and this is a big one - better cash management and security. The main issue we hear from owners and managers that only take cash is the amount of time they spend reconciling or in the bank depositing money.
Finally, accepting credit cards allows you to be able to track and receive funds in an expeditious manner.
This leads us to Bonfire. Bonfire created its own payment system called Bonfire Pay, offering the highest level of security compliance. The card reporting is incredibly robust and we have incredibly competitive rates. Sign up is easy. All you do is go online and put in information about your business, and we can have you processing as early as the next day.
If you don't take cards, this is a perfect time to start. If you do take cards, Bonfire Pay can help you streamline your processes.
Click here for the guide to campsite, RV Park and campground deposits.
Comparing Software and Payment Processors:
Campground and RV park managers have had to rely on pen and paper, whiteboards, spreadsheets, and antiquated CD software for far too long. With the growth we’re experiencing across the industry, it's time to take time back from manual tasks and drive efficiency by optimizing operations and data-informed decisions.
There are solutions that do just that. Bonfire’s cloud-based software was created to make the transition to digital reservation management simple, and offers features such as a calendar representation of reservations and a dashboard with core industry reporting.
Click here to compare the top 5 campground and RV Park software options.
Recap:
The industry is changing. Consumers are changing. The entire culture is changing. It couldn’t be a better time to create a strong digital footprint that allows you to have more access to your customers and for your customers to have more access to you.
How much time do you want to spend at the bank or sitting in front of a computer screen, reconciling deposits as well as different payments? By creating efficiencies in your business through technology and digital payments, you can focus on growth instead of maintenance.
Technology paves these paths. It reduces operational hassles and allows you to connect, record feedback, and build a business that more efficiently meets your customers’ needs. And, if you build it, they will come.
Questions:
Q: How does someone start out in creating a campground? What do they need to think about?
A: We have multiple blogs on this:
Like I mentioned, any hospitality, establishment, itself, location, location, location. Uh, this does depend on what kind of customer camping customer, you are catering to, you could have a destination location.
Click here to read more about defining your perfect customer and how to market correctly to them.
You could be a pass through, you know, a spot like on the way to the coast type thing. You could be located in an area that is between a couple of major cities that are undergoing lots of construction. Uh, so you'll need to know if you would like your catering to work campers. Location based on your customer base is one big thing that I always recommend.
The other part is, financing. One piece of advice from a mentor that I got about 10 years ago, is that in anything you're going to spend twice as much time, twice as much money, and get half as much results. Doesn't matter how much your plan does it, how much, how many times you've actually done it. There's always going to be that plan. And then there's going to be the hurdles and the blockers that will divert that. You have to learn to troubleshoot. So make a plan, make a business plan, even if you don't necessarily follow it to the T, but that will lead to the other things like funding.
Click here to read our blog about creating a business plan for your RV Park or campground.
Then you have to go and build things. If you're building things, you have to have permits. So one of the biggest, whenever we're talking to new owners or people that say, Hey, we're purchasing a campground or we're building a campgrounds. The biggest derailer of their timetable to adopt bonfire and get up and running and get, you know, get revenue back and recoup costs is their permits. It's never too early to start the permitting process.
Q: How can you best handle credit card fees and point of sale expenses?
A: I don't want to say a blanket statement, but there are ways to have what we call either a surcharging, which is, which is a little bit more regulated or cash discounts. These are programs where you can actually pass the fees on to your consumers. That is doable if it is here in Dallas, as a matter of fact. If you think about it most utility companies do this.
This was originally called convenience fees and convenience fees were originally made for government entities to be able to charge, what used to be paid for by cash or check to be able to have the convenience to use credit cards. The convenience fee is then morphed into surcharging and it morphed into now a cash for discount and all three programs have benefits and features.
Q: what was the statistic that you had mentioned for increase in camping over the last five years?
A: 31%. Koa did a study and the growth that they stated for growth was 31% between 2014 and 2019.
Click here to read our blog looking at all the camping trends from 2019.
Have additional questions we didn’t answer or want to know if Bonfire would be a good fit for your park? We’d love to talk. Drop us a line at howdy@letsbonfire.com.
Blogs mentioned in this post:
How to Define & Target the Perfect Campers for Your Campground
A List of Resources for Rv Park & Campground Owners
Which Campground Software is Best for Your Park?
How to Start a Campground or RV Park
How to Market your Campground & RV Park Using Social Media, Digital Ads, Email & More
Extending Wifi For Your RV Park or Campground
How Coronavirus is Impacting Travel
