Our members asked the following questions, and other members provided their responses. The member questions and responses were generated from a Wednesday Wisdom email on 5/8/2019.
What revenue centers do you offer aside from camping sites?
RESPONSE: We have a camp store & offer options for RV/boat storage.
RESPONSE: The best thing we did was offer canvas glamping tents. Guests love them and they have a very high occupancy rate. We went the route of making them feel high end with high quality bedding, comforters, and even in-floor radiant heat in the concrete slab they sit on – this allows us to rent them in April (we’ve found there isn’t much demand) and October (demand is still high in October and we do a good job of filling them). As for other revenue streams, firewood and kindling starter bags (each sold separately) bring in a fair amount for tent campers and glampers. Ice sales is also a good source of revenue. We ditched nearly all food and small grocery items since we reduced our site quantity and don’t have enough volume/demand to sell them – except for s’more supplies, of course. There’s always demand for that. Also, our Cancellation Guarantee Fee brings in a fair amount of revenue without much loss – see below for more on that.
RESPONSE: None yet, but plans are in play for locally produced produce stand, bike/river rentals, firewood, fire-pits (gas or wood), event venue/location rentals in the open field areas, food truck collaborations, non-guest dump station/water filling, winter RV storage.
RESPONSE: Washers/dryers: dump station fee for non campground users; showers for hikers not staying at campground; patio shelter rental $25-1/2 day; ice cream sundaes$3; pancake breakfast $6.50 all you can eat.
RESPONSE: the gift shop, about $50k/annually, firewood ($2,500-$3,000), showers for non-guests (not a big generator, but maybe about $1,200), RV storage – not a lot of $$ for us, more of a guest service. But, I think it could be a source of revenue for some parks.
RESPONSE: Jeep Rentals are our next biggest source of income. Jeep trails are abundant here and tapping into that market has kept us profitable. We’ve opened an account with Camping World (plenty of other similar vendors) to provide a greater than usual supply of RV parts and accessories. Being very remote with the nearest Walmart an hour away, we’ve been able to fill a void. Bottom line, our extra revenue centers are based on a need in the area, not necessarily on something cool that we could offer.
Do you have monthlies who have washers in their rigs? We find these to be consuming our water resources without providing laundry revenue. Is there a mechanism you have in place to compensate for this?
RESPONSE: We no longer offer RV sites. When we were still offering RV sites, we charged a ridiculous amount of money for monthlies because there seems to be so little in it if you’re renting them during peak season when you could get a lot more from nightly rentals.
RESPONSE: I’m not sure yet! We only have 1 person, as of now, who’s staying longer than a month.
RESPONSE: We do have monthlies with washers. We do produce our own water, however, so this really hasn’t been a significant issue for us. Electricity is where we see the hit in the last two years. We are contemplating going to metered electricity charges for the monthlies.
RESPONSE: We have very few monthlies and I have no idea if they have washers, I never thought to inquire. However, you can’t really meter and sell water legally the way you can on electric.
Guests are wanting to stream, i.e., dishhnetwork dish.any.where, netflix, amazon prime, etc. For me to increase the internet speed it would be another $400 a month. I’d love to provide this, but cannot afford. Our park generates income in 4 months, June to September, and is mostly long-stays.
RESPONSE: We struggle with the cost, too. Currently we use Secom which uses a line of sight antenna. It only works because there happens to be a tower they use within a few miles of us. It’s worth looking into.
RESPONSE: We only have satellite internet as an option, so we let them know that streaming may not be possible, depending on the amount of traffic (we did change companies from what Gina & Larry had though, so streaming is at least a possibility now).
RESPONSE: If your current provider is a landline you might consider looking into wireless providers in your area (you might be surprised that they exist near you!). If your local provider doesn’t have appropriate pricing, I used to work with a developer who provided his own “cable and internet” provider to all his subdivisions by simply tapping into the main telecomm or fiber line and installing hardware in the pump house of the HOA irrigation. He said it was relatively easy to do once you got through to the right people and he made good money at it.
RESPONSE: We lost our cable company in the valley 5 years ago and can provide no access to TV for our guests. Many come with satellite TV in their rigs, but many do not and wish to stream. Access to that level of broadband in my area is increasing, but still pretty limited. We try not to limit usage and instead increase our access to bigger internet pipes when we can and just figure in the cost into the rates for the following year. I have looked at something like Tengo, but I am also an RVer during the winter. (Our months are May-Sept). I have yet to stay at an RV campground that had Tengo where I have been impressed by the quality of the internet. People do sometimes complain about the rates always going up, but they complain even louder about crappy internet.
RESPONSE: Our wifi handout states “our free wifi is for general browsing only and not intended for streaming, downloading or uploading large files or for gaming.” Of course everyone wants to stream movies, but that may be a lot to ask of free public wifi. An alternative is to download movies ahead of time, then watch them at your campsite.
Does anyone charge a resort fee? If so, how much and how do you justify it?
RESPONSE: We tried for a short while, but unless you really have all of the amenities a ‘resort guest’ is looking for, they just are angry and annoyed by it. We dropped it, and have even avoided calling ourselves a resort since higher expectations come along with that name. I’d recommend a ‘cancellation guarantee fee’ instead. We use this with great success. It’s like travel insurance for the guest, but you can’t call it insurance according to the law (since you aren’t an insurance company). We add 7.5% to the reservation (opt out for online bookings, opt in for over-the-phone reservations). All of the details can be found here: https://www.royalgorgecabins.com/policies/ and feel free to share this with other members.
RESPONSE: No resort amenities, so no resort fee.
RESPONSE: What is that?
REPONSE: I have a fee for non-guest dumping, water filling, pool use, river access, showers, etc. that I lump all together and call a “resort fee”. I don’t know if that is the context of the question though. Some people create different fees for all this. We charge $10/day. This has been a total ‘guess and check’ approach on the pricing/value but I haven’t had anyone turn it away yet after inquiring.
RESPONSE: A resort fee is a good thought based on your previous bullet points.
RESPONSE: We don’t charge a resort fee. I have a garden railroad and free coffee. Does that make us a resort?!
For now we’ll leave it at this. If we get more questions and answers, we’ll add them to this post.
Colorado Campground & Lodging Owners Association (CCLOA) 
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