When there is little or no RV traffic, you can't price low enough to get business. If there are 10 rigs in the park at $40 per night and there is little or no traffic, lowering the rate to $5 would mean there might be 11 rigs in the park. All you would have done is turn $400 of revenue into $55. That is why we have never considered Passport America. The odds in the off season are all you are going to do is turn a full price customer who was already going to stay there into a half price customer. You can't buy a lot of RV business if people are not traveling to the area, which is the case with vacation travel in the mountain west before mid June. Weather might be great, but no one in their right mind is going to plan a long trip to the area 6 months in advance if there is a chance for horrible weather which often occurs in the mountains until late June. Last Year we were still plowing snow in Mid June. This year we got 10 inches of snow on the Saturday of Memorial day at one of our parks. You may see hundreds of RVs passing on the interstate, but they are Snowbirds migrating north and the only thing you can catch is the 5 pm to 7 pm traffic. Earlier than that, they are going to keep going. By 7 PM most are off the road. Don't worry, Starting June 15th or so, the Western States vacation season kicks into gear. If the park is empty July 1 start worrying, otherwise it is going exactly according to Hoyle.
The owner knows what he (she) need to earn to make a reasonable profit and pay their costs to have a successful business. I'd rather pay a little more for quality than go for the cut-rate, no frills, package when we look for CG's. A discussion with the owner may be appropriate if you feel up to it; but remember he (she) is the one who has taken the risk of owning a business and pays the bills. Don't get the idea that you know all the facts about their costs and business objectives, after all you're their employee and don't have much of a dog in this fight.
Sooner Schooner wrote: We are workamping at a very nice smaller RV resort (I call it a park) in Colorado. In my opinion,the price to stay here is way too high and apparently others think so too. On a daily basis I see so many RVs drive by on this very popular highway and we have very little business. We had very few sites rented out on Memorial Day weekend. The owner is very nice and is really working hard to make this a first rate park, but he does not want to lower rates to get customers in. All those empty sites are dollars lost you can never make up. The less customers we have, the less work we do for upkeep, but I would like to see him do well with this business. Guess he knows what he wants, but I just don't get the business mentality going on here. Guess I'll just sit back and enjoy our workamping experience here.
Doesn't sound like you are very happy. The snide remarks like "not sure about business mentality' and "small resort, I call it a park" and "Iwouldn't pay the rates they charge" don't bode well for an ongoing working relationship. An unhappy worker is no good for either the employer or the employee. Just riding out your "workamping experience" is doing an injustice to both you and the park. Perhaps you and the park should part ways, for the benefit of all parties.
* This post was
edited 06/03/12 09:58pm by westernrvparkowner *
mbinohio wrote: I owned my own business for 30 yrs, and I did fairly well but I can tell you that everybody from the janitor to an office manager know how to run my business better than I did......
LOL. Funny how the dumbest person in a business is the owner.
accsys wrote: A half full campground paying $50 per night gives more profit than a full one paying $25. Like another poster said, pricing is one of the most difficult decisions made in a business. Unless the owner is new to the campground business, I'm sure he has taken all of the different variables into consideration before setting his price.
I owned a small copy and print shop and found this to be exactly right. We could lower prices and work our fannies off and make no money. We could raise prices, cut the work in half and make more profit. According to all the literature in our trade, the shops that charged the most usually made the most money, even though they may not have been as busy. The only business that make money at low prices are the big, big boys that make it up on volume--like Walmart, etc.
2007 Northwoods Arctic Fox 32 5S Fifth Wheel-for sale now that we are not full-timing
2011 Keystone 23rks Hideout to poke around the smaller parks in the great Southwest
2007 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Diesel
Prodigy brake control
Sooner Schooner wrote: We are workamping at a very nice smaller RV resort (I call it a park) in Colorado. In my opinion,the price to stay here is way too high and apparently others think so too. On a daily basis I see so many RVs drive by on this very popular highway and we have very little business. We had very few sites rented out on Memorial Day weekend. The owner is very nice and is really working hard to make this a first rate park, but he does not want to lower rates to get customers in. All those empty sites are dollars lost you can never make up. The less customers we have, the less work we do for upkeep, but I would like to see him do well with this business. Guess he knows what he wants, but I just don't get the business mentality going on here. Guess I'll just sit back and enjoy our workamping experience here.
Doesn't sound like you are very happy. The snide remarks like "not sure about business mentality' and "small resort, I call it a park" and "Iwouldn't pay the rates they charge" don't bode well for an ongoing working relationship. An unhappy worker is no good for either the employer or the employee. Just riding out your "workamping experience" is doing an injustice to both you and the park. Perhaps you and the park should part ways, for the benefit of all parties.
Your comments are pretty snide...again... You forgot the ones I made about the "nice owner, nice park, I want him to do well, etc" But I have read some of your previous posts and replies and you are good at that. I have also been a business owner and you have to crawl before you can walk. All these empty sites is lost revenue, you can't ever get it back. I would love to have a busier park, and NO, I am not unhappy here, I love it, just want to be busier. End of story.
Empty sites in an RV park, empty seats in a theatre, inventory sitting on the shelves etc are not, necessarily a bad thing. RV parks cannot be full all the time, that is why most shut down in their off seasons. They are sized and operated to make the most out of a very short season, the rest of the time they sit there. Same thing with movie theatres, they make their money on the big movies, when the houses are full, with a bad movie they sit empty, but they don't lower the prices, because it doesn't matter how low the price is, people aren't coming to see Ishtar. With inventory you don't lower the price to something ridiculous before a big selling season because it is very hard to then make the customer justify the higher prices during the rush. You can only know if the prices are too high by knowing the competition, both their prices and what they offer.
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