Am I too picky about cg's?
I rate cg's based on physical condition, amenities and if they actually have them, site size and condition, and bathhouses. It seems quite a few are in a bad need of renovation and don't follow throu...
Forum Discussion
westernrvparkowner wrote:
If park owners listened to these forums (and I usually don't), you would find even more run down parks than you do now. The biggest gripe most people have is price. For some reason people think an RV site is overpriced at $25.00. Well you can't upgrade a park on $25.00. Too many park owners get scared into thinking all their business will go away if they charge the prices needed to upgrade and keep a nice park. Does anyone have an idea of how much it costs to do a good renovation? Two years ago I did a complete redo of a bathhouse. $125,000 later, I have the best facility there is, period. But that $125,000 I spend earns me not one penny more in revenue unless I raise prices.
Wifi, another item that 99.9% of the people do not appreciate. Last night I had 147 connections to the wifi network at 9PM. When have you walked into a McDonalds and seen 147 people on their network? I have to cover 9 acres. How many 9 acre Starbucks are there? I would love to have larger sites, but in prime RV real estate country an acre of land can cost over $200,000. How can that cost be covered if I put 4 sites per acre? Answer: only at about $200.00 a night. Put 12 or 14 sites on an acre, then you start looking at a more manageable nightly fee.
Now there is absolutely no excuse for filth. That is fully in the control of management. But I seldom have stayed at parks that were truly filthy. Then again, I don't go seeking the lowest price. Before I got into the business a very successful park owner told me the last thing you wanted to be was the bottom priced park, because that will draw the bottom feeding customer. Maybe your solution to always finding bad parks is to set your sites on the mid-priced parks, they might use some of that extra money for upkeep and improvements.
Now you know as well as I do, you didn't spend $125,000 on a bathhouse without getting something in return; a tax deduction, maintaining your park to continue to attract existing business, and to bring in new customers. No business person invests money without some kind of return.
