I’m Donna Bordeaux with CampgroundAccounting.com. Let’s talk rates for a moment, do you have weekly rates or monthly rates or seasonal rates? One of the things you want to watch is to make sure you’re not cutting yourself short with weekly and monthly and seasonal rates.

If you have high occupancy in your campground, you probably don’t want to have weekly rates they don’t really serve any purpose for you. They only help your guests, and most of those guests would have been willing to pay for whatever they were needing to pay in the weekly rate instead.

So I’ll give you a good example, I was at a park in Gulf shores, Alabama, a couple of weeks ago, their daily rate was $125 a day. They had a weekly rate that was equivalent to about five days. So basically if you got the weekly, rate, you got your last two days for free and you could stay for seven. So what’s the benefit to you as the owner?

And to me as a customer, I was actually scheduled to be there for six days and they tried to charge me the daily rate instead of the weekly rate. Nobody ever said that there was a weekly rate that would have cost me less, so as a guest, I’m a little irritated by the policy. In their case, they were 100% full anyhow. Why would you want to give away free days if you don’t need a weekly rate in that situation? So I would encourage you to look.

If you have a weekly rate, only utilize that weekly rate in your slower times of the year. Make sure it serves a purpose. Is it really encouraging people to stay longer? And do you really need them to stay longer? Are they just getting a break on the rate and not staying the full seven days or the full month? Take a look at your weekly rate, I seriously think the weekly rate days are gone. Get rid of it. Be a trailblazer. Thanks. I’m Donna Bordeaux, CampgroundAccounting.com.

Donna Bordeaux, CPA with Campground Accounting

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 issues that face RV park owners every day.

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