resorts

Sorry for the misunderstanding. To clarify what I was trying to say, Coast to Coast (not our affiliated resorts) pays the independent Good Sam rating teams to rate our membership resorts every year. Membership resorts would not otherwise be rated by the Good Sam teams, as they are not open to the public. Coast spends the extra money as a way to insure that we're sending our members to quality parks & resorts. We also monitor member feedback on our parks & resorts as another way to make sure we're delivering a quality network. If you check any of the directories of our competitors, you will see that they do not have ratings for their resorts. The point is, Coast goes the extra mile to try our best to deliver a quality resort network for our members. Hope this helps clarify my earlier comments.

Hello all - To Bruce’s point, we'd like to clarify that no parks, including Good Sam Parks, pay for their ratings whatsoever. Their ratings are solely based on the physical inspection performed by the Good Sam Review Teams.

Our Good Sam Review Teams are paid only for their time and inspection work in the field. And as Bruce has already mentioned, the Teams are paid by Coast to Coast management for the additional time and work involved for the Coast to Coast review and inspection process as well.

Regards,

Ellen Tyson
Good Sam RV Travel Guide & Campground Directory

Bruce Hoster wrote:
Sorry for the misunderstanding. To clarify what I was trying to say, Coast to Coast (not our affiliated resorts) pays the independent Good Sam rating teams to rate our membership resorts every year. Membership resorts would not otherwise be rated by the Good Sam teams, as they are not open to the public. Coast spends the extra money as a way to insure that we're sending our members to quality parks & resorts. We also monitor member feedback on our parks & resorts as another way to make sure we're delivering a quality network. If you check any of the directories of our competitors, you will see that they do not have ratings for their resorts. The point is, Coast goes the extra mile to try our best to deliver a quality resort network for our members. Hope this helps clarify my earlier comments.

So the ratings for the membership parks are bought and paid for. At least we know why all those reviews on RV park reviews say things like "I don't know how this C2C park got the high Good Sam ratings...?" I now wonder what other parsing of the English language is done by the Good Sam Directory. For example, it would be true to say that individual parks cannot buy ratings, but if a major franchisor like KOA or Leisure Resorts (Yogi Parks) paid corporately to have their franchise parks rated, that would amount to the same thing. Or as a president once said, "What is "is"" This information makes Good Sam Travel Directory, supposedly independent rating source, yet another one to cross off the list.

ETyson wrote:
Hello all - To Bruce’s point, we'd like to clarify that no parks, including Good Sam Parks, pay for their ratings whatsoever. Their ratings are solely based on the physical inspection performed by the Good Sam Review Teams.

Our Good Sam Review Teams are paid only for their time and inspection work in the field. And as Bruce has already mentioned, the Teams are paid by Coast to Coast management for the additional time and work involved for the Coast to Coast review and inspection process as well.

Regards,

Ellen Tyson
Good Sam RV Travel Guide & Campground Directory

Sorry, but you must have been posting at the same time I was posting my response to Bruce. If ANY park, franchisor, time share operator or any other entity that can directly benefit from a rating can pay to be rated that makes the whole system suspect. No one would believe that Good Sam would give anything less than favorable ratings to anyone who paid for those ratings. Since we now know SOME parks have paid to be rated, we must assume there is a chance than ANY park we are considering paid and therefore those ratings are worthless. BAD, BAD, BAD policy.

Hi bigdogger - I think there is some confusion about a park's rating, and how we gather that information.

A park's rating is based on the physical inspection made by the review team and adheres to the ratings guidelines set by Good Sam only.

The rating inspection is a requirement for all private RV parks and campgrounds by Good Sam RV Travel Guide and Coast to Coast. No RV park or campground (private or franchise owned) pays any kind of fee to be inspected or pays any kind of fee for their final rating. A policy that has been in place for many years.

Good Sam RV Travel Guide and Coast to Coast are sister companies and therefore utilize the same review teams and rating guidelines. We employ 35 review teams to inspect private RV parks and campgrounds throughout North America. The Good Sam rating inspection is a job performed by our review teams and they are remunerated by Good Sam Enterprises only.

Franchise parks such as KOA or Yogi Parks go through the same rigorous inspection per park just like an individually, privately owned park.

I would be happy to contact you directly if you have further questions about the ratings, just send me your email address.

Regards,

Ellen Tyson
Good Sam RV Travel Guide

"Since we now know SOME parks have paid to be rated, we must assume there is a chance than ANY park we are considering paid and therefore those ratings are worthless. BAD, BAD, BAD policy."

There are several responses trying to explain that no park or group of parks pays for a rating. The people doing the rating are contracted by Good Sam and/or Coast to Coast to provide independent reviews of affiliated parks. The gentleman from Texas is implying that the reviews can be influenced by the park being reviewed for which he offers no evidence. What purpose would be served by having Good Sam and/or Coast to Coast provide inflated park ratings? Just so people would use these parks, find them overrated and have something to complain about? Conspiracy theorists will find a conspiracy even where facts do not support the allegation. The Good Sam directory and the Woodalls directory that preceded it, has been an excellent source of untainted reviews for years. Web sources such a RV Park Review are also good resources. At times the 2 don't offer the same viewpoint in regards to a particular park. Much like 2 photos of the same subject, they can show differing quality because some factors are fluid and subject to changing. If the gentleman from Texas chooses not to use the Good Sam Directory, is his option of course. But the opinion he chooses to project is not supported by the facts in this case.

CRBuck NY wrote:
"Since we now know SOME parks have paid to be rated, we must assume there is a chance than ANY park we are considering paid and therefore those ratings are worthless. BAD, BAD, BAD policy."

There are several responses trying to explain that no park or group of parks pays for a rating. The people doing the rating are contracted by Good Sam and/or Coast to Coast to provide independent reviews of affiliated parks. The gentleman from Texas is implying that the reviews can be influenced by the park being reviewed for which he offers no evidence. What purpose would be served by having Good Sam and/or Coast to Coast provide inflated park ratings? Just so people would use these parks, find them overrated and have something to complain about? Conspiracy theorists will find a conspiracy even where facts do not support the allegation. The Good Sam directory and the Woodalls directory that preceded it, has been an excellent source of untainted reviews for years. Web sources such a RV Park Review are also good resources. At times the 2 don't offer the same viewpoint in regards to a particular park. Much like 2 photos of the same subject, they can show differing quality because some factors are fluid and subject to changing. If the gentleman from Texas chooses not to use the Good Sam Directory, is his option of course. But the opinion he chooses to project is not supported by the facts in this case.

If Good Sam is being paid to rate the parks, they have a vested interest in keeping that customer. The easiest way to keep a customer is to provide them with what they want. No park would want a bad rating, so providing them with a good rating would be one way to keep a happy customer and a happy customer is a customer that will continue to pay year after year. Until now, it has always been communicated to people that the ratings are independently funded by Good Sam, that the parks had nothing to do with how, when, or how much, the raters got paid. Now, however, the raters very job may be on the line to provide a good rating. If the source of the funds went away, so would their jobs.

Good Sam isnt being paid to rate the parks, people like you and I are paid for our time and talents to visit and provide independent ratings on behalf of Good Sam. This system has been in place in the hospitality industry for years. ZAGAT, MICHELIN, AAA and MOBIL all come to mind as brands that people are familiar with in the ratings field. I assume they use a similar model of paid evaluators. Do you feel that that makes the ratings any less useful? The people who do the evaluations have one thing to sell, their reputation. Do you seriously think they would ruin their one asset by "fudging" an evaluation? Seriously, there is no "gotcha" here sir, you are misreading the facts and drawing a totally bogus conclusion. The Good Sam ratings are legitimate despite your attempt to taint them. Hopefully this will end this thread. Happy travels.