The perfect RV campground

SkyWriting wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:
I would doubt that more than 1% of the RVing public would choose a park because the park had lectures. Unless you have some kind of remarkably unique property, nature trails are another non-starter. Food would only be important if you were extremely remote with no other dining options anywhere around. Most RVers are looking for destinations beyond the park unless you are considering a seasonal park.
For most any park the primary focus should be utilities, facilities and hard amenities. Quality hookups, good roads, clean bath facilities, a good laundry and well groomed landscaping is much more important than anything else. Management is often in the eyes of the beholder. A park managed tightly will appeal to many and be a turn off to many more. Same with the other way around. Echoing the post of another (who probably stole if from one of my many other posts making the exact same point :D) attempting to please everyone will mean you will please no one. Decide on the market segment you wish to capture and build the park to meet those needs. If you haven't built a park before, consider hiring a professional park consultant. They will likely save you tens to hundreds of thousands in construction costs and prevent you from building a huge white elephant that will suck the life out of you.

I already have chosen a potential site and am seeking how to upgrade it past tent camping. It includes forest and a lake, which is unique to the surrounding plains. The structures on the site are large enough to hold conferences as well as expansive natural brick paved outdoor spaces. Past owners did not properly identifying their market niche, which is a mistake I would avoid.

I would be delving much deeper into why the previous business failed. What you are proposing, building an RV park, is going to cost multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars on top of the purchase price of the property. If the previous business failed because the trade area didn't support it, why would an RV park be different?
Are you planning a seasonal park? If so, will the lake and woods be a big enough attraction to keep people there 5 months every year? Definition and use of a lake differs widely. If the lake is a 20,000 acre boating lake that is different than if the lake is 5 acres and supports a few catfish and snakes. Woods are nice, but what can people actually do in them? Advertising and major recreational amenities such as pools, playgrounds etc. will be a huge part of the success of a new seasonal park and that means major costs.
If your plan is an overnight park then really the overriding concern will be location to major trafficways and access. A lake, nature trails, activities and the like won't draw in someone who is on their way to somewhere else. If you are more than a mile or two from the traffic it is very likely that business plan is going to fail.