I’m Donna from CampgroundAccounting.com and I am standing in beautiful, Cortez, Colorado today at the KOA.  I want to talk to you about accommodations. Most people know if they have an RV that they can check out a campground and they’ll search for one, but what you’re missing is that’s only a small fraction of the market. What about the people who don’t have an RV? You’ve got spaces for them to accommodate their needs for lodging, but they don’t know you even exist. So let’s take a moment to talk about how you can let people know that you have wonderful accommodations for them in beautiful scenic locations like this that they can take advantage of rather than the same ole, same old Holiday Inn — overnight campground. In this case, I want you to think about how you attract those people. People don’t know that you have accommodations.

If you have cabins, teepee tents, or just tent sites, or you have other accommodations, you’re going to have to look to ways to let people know you exist. And that’s not going to be just on your campground website – because they don’t know to look there. If you have cabins, make sure you’re using a Vrbo or Airbnb or even Booking.com to list your cabin so that people can actually find you. You don’t know, you might even be inviting some people to become RV buyers once they see how wonderful the campground life is. So make sure you are using those booking engines to let people know you exist.

Here’s another idea, if you have tent sites, how much does it really cost to go get a tent that you could set up on a site? You know that there are sites for tents where people can come in and just pull up their car. The tent is already set up! No offense, but we need these for the city folks. They don’t know how to set up tents! They don’t have that kind of equipment. So by a couple of tents, add those as part of your rental profile to tent site to let somebody know that they can just come park their car right in front and be ready to have a camping experience for the weekend or even the entire week. Especially if you’re in some tourist destinations or you’re near some scenic things like the mountains here.

Make sure that you have some options available. One more thing I want to add, let’s say that you don’t have accommodations. You don’t have cabins or tent sites even available. Maybe your campground is all RVs. Here’s one more thing to try, contact a local RV dealer and see if they’ll let you buy an RV that they might be otherwise wholesaling to put on one of your sites.

Some people just don’t know how the camp if they don’t have an RV; so maybe you get a travel trailer, and put it on your site. And, if you can get one with a bunkhouse, I think that’d be great! That’ll help entice families to come to visit your campground. Add that bunkhouse camper to your RV site and just rent it out as a whole unit. Again, be sure to list it on Vrbo or Airbnb and let them know the accommodations you have. You can also even use this if you have family visiting you, you have a place for them to stay too if you don’t have cabins. So check out and work with the local RV dealer in your area and see if you can get one of those travel trailers to put on one of your sites and rent the whole package. Give them the accommodations as well as the RV side, and take care of all their needs, even if they don’t own an RV. Maybe again, they might be a new camper coming to you next year and for years to come because they learned to love camping so much.

What happens when you send two CPAs out into the relaxing outdoors to camp? You get CampgroundAccounting.com.  Donna and Chad have over 50 years of combined experience as entrepreneurial CPAs.  They’ve owned businesses and helped business owners exceed their wildest dreams.  They camp and travel across the country every chance they get, so it’s just a natural fit that they focus their CPA skills on helping campground owners throughout the USA grow their businesses and minimize the impact of taxes.  They understand the key performance indicators and specialized issued that face RV park owners every day.

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