Short RV Park/Campground Website Poll

[moreroad]

I am doing a study to determine the benefits RVers receive from RV Park websites.

We are starting with a very simple poll and would really appreciate as many results as follows. Results will be published in this Forum

Please pick one answer:

Question 1
Does the quality of a Park Website (old, not maintained, dated look, lack of photos, etc.) affect your decision when booking a reservation?

It does not affect our decision

It affects our decision somewhat

It affects our decision a lot of the time

It affects our decision significantly


Thanks to all who respond.

Scott Charters

[NCWriter]

Significantly

[Old-Biscuit]

Lack of info affects me significantly

Give me rates, rules, ADDRESS/Directions, phone numbers and pics of SITES

Don't care about photos of guests, parties or events

Website sells the place.

[johnhicks]

It affects our decision quite a bit, but of course those nice photos can lie.

If you don't publish your current rates I'm very likely to pass you by.

[JFNM]

DrewE wrote:
I would say it affects my decision a good bit of the time, but my definition of the quality of the website is probably somewhat different than what you're thinking of.

X2!! What he said! 🙂 However; I don't stay in RV Parks all that often.

[bukhrn]

Somewhat, I like reservations, Photos are nice, but photos of the Pool, laundry, office, to me may, (or may not) indicate cleanliness, they are worthless to determine site description, like size, trees, levelness,(if that's a word ?)and amenities. Plus, you never know if photos are yesterday or 5 years ago, or are they even of this park.
Also price is extremely important, photos & maps of a gorgeous CG with beautiful sites & grounds draws my attention, but a $100 a night price tag gets by passed every time, a website that doesn't post a price gives me the impression that they are trying to hide something.

[Lauren]

As a reservation guy, I start with RV Park Reviews - throw out hi and lo and don't go back more than 2 years but then do go websites of those I am interested in.

Having lived in the upper Midwest I was used to look for cabins in northern MN or WI and get a brochure realizing that pictures are usually 10-15 years old.

No so bad with websites I don't think.

So I guess I am between at lot and significantly.

But the website is my final criteria to make a call. The call is the ultimate decision maker.

[DutchmenSport]

Doesn't affect me at all. I just simply skip over them and keep looking. No problem!

[RVcrazy]

Somewhat. I expect to see contact info, park map, directions & PRICES. I also use RV park reviews & trip advisor, as well as feedback from this forum.

[korbe]

It does not affect our decision

The quality of a web site does not tell if the park is of the same quality.

[Johno02]

It affects our decision significantly

[darsben1]

It affects our decision significantly

[one_strange_tex]

Good survey. Though not "scientific," it will provide useful information.

"Somewhat" is the answer. There are those that run a top notch RV park that may not be tuned into the on-line world "yet." This is but one, but a useful test of the quality of a RV site, always done at a distance and with less than complete information.

In the old days, I used to do this by calling the park and asking for a brochure. Just they way they handled this request told me something about the park, though it only might have told me about the competency of the person they hired to answer the phone that day.

My main criteria for picking parks is rvparkreviews.com. I look at the rating, but also at the distribution of ratings and at the lower ratings to determine if they have some off-the-wall bone to pick or had some unreasonable expectation for the park.

[arush19]

A lot of the time

[DrewE]

I would say it affects my decision a good bit of the time, but my definition of the quality of the website is probably somewhat different than what you're thinking of.

Content is king. A dated looking website with up-to-date information is in my opinion much preferable to a snazzy looking website that is all fluff. Photos are nice (particularly photos of the campsites), but a current price list is much more important, along with dates of operation and at least an overview of policies and similar things. A site with a simple layout that loads quickly (especially important on e.g. a phone) is often handier than one with fancy swooping slideshows and videos and big background pictures that look pretty once they eventually are fetched by the browser.

It's probably not quite so much of a problem for campgrounds, but I am sometimes amazed at what basic information is omitted from small business websites. I've more than once happened upon the web site for some place that sounds like it would be fun to visit, and seen all sorts of pictures and upcoming special events and such like but found no clue as to what state they are located in. I've seen more than one church website that fails to mention what time their Sunday morning service(s) start at. It seems many places give a lot of thought about what they want to communicate to the world (which is not a bad thing to do) and less thought about what someone looking them up might be trying to find out.

[murphysranch]

It affects our decision significantly