What is the Passport America plan

valhalla360 wrote:

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
valhalla360. has an aguably valid point as it applies to camps with strong weekend and event occupancy with weekday vacancy. . Many PPA parks we have encountered benefit some from the dynamic pricing PPA affords during those off peak periods.
We have also seen unscrupulous operators who designate only their worst nearly unusable sites as a ' bait and switch' and dishonest guests with expired cards flashing it to get the discount.
The reason there are well less than 10% of commercial camps participating in PPA shows that in each location the factors of occupancy vs cost still must be positive for the operator.
Occupancy, beyond static cost can add staffing, disrupt groundskeeping maintenance, and more. Utility, labor , supply and waste costs are static.
In our part of the country, where there is no city with more than 60k people within 6 hrs drive there is no weekend glut, a wednesday is the same as a saturday. Noone drives 6 hrs for a weekend getaway. They do for a week or longer holiday and vacation.
6 national parks, dozens of state parks, in the same travel time from those big population centers with no dynamic pricing draws the short stay bunch- if they can snag a reservation-
In considering wheather a park joins, or you join, consider your travel plans, the area and the parks region.
In areas hours away from cities you wont find deep discount parks. If you do, be wary, you may get what you pay for, or for full price what you wish for.

Do you have any evidence to back up claims of people being given undesirable/unusable sites? Given that you are saying it about your competition and appear to be against the program, evidence to support your claims appears warranted. We used 18 different parks this past winter all across the country. We've done similar numbers in past years. Never saw any evidence of what you describe.

I suspect most parks aren't too worried about the validity of the users card. Most never ask to see it. I don't know the internal finances but I'm guessing the parks don't get anything directly from the cost of the card (that probably goes almost exclusively to the PPA corporation), so they don't have a strong incentive to turn away a potential sale. You can argue that's not right but that's between the parks and the PPA corporation.

Occupancy does have some costs but not much. The vast majority of costs are present if a site is empty or full mid week. It would be a very odd situation if the incremental costs exceeded even 10% of the regular rate, so getting 50% still leaves a lot of room for profit. Unless you are at 0% occupancy mid week, grounds have to work around campers and you have to keep staff around the office for check in and other customer questions.

Of course if it doesn't meet your parks needs, don't join. But dire unsupported warnings come across as bitter.

Here are few few costs of occupancy off the top of my head. Electricity, water, sewer, credit card fees, labor to check in, clean sites, remove trash, answer questions, handle issues etc. Then there is the potential costs of pet waste, bathroom supplies, hot water heating costs for showers and a reserve for damages that must be spread over every guest because stuff does happen..
Then there is the unspoken fact that there is a value attached to providing a service. Just like a plumber won’t come to your house for $20.00 on his day off even though it would be incremental revenue I am not willing to service a guest for less than what I charge the average customer. If my normal rate is $60.00 and my incremental cost is $10.00 I am willing to do the work involved for the $50.00 gross profit. And just like the plumber I am not willing to do it for $20.00. My time is more valuable than that.