The 2015 Outdoor Recreation Participation Topline Report from the Outdoor Foundation includes a breakdown of outdoor participation by activity for everything from Adventure Racing to Wildlife Viewing. In summary, it reports that 48.4% of Americans participated in at least one outdoor activity in 2014, translating into 141.4 million participants engaging in a total of 11.8 billion outdoor events. These are impressive numbers, many of which are skewed – either positively or negatively – by weather patterns; however, it is important to examine individual industries in order to get a better grasp regarding trends.

With the gathering of statistics going back to 2006, the report includes 3-year changes within individual activities that provide a quick snapshot of either increases or decreases in participation. There are similar trends exhibited between Alpine/Downhill Skiing and RV Camping. Putting aside the reported 3-year changes, I think that it is even more compelling to compare the 2014 participation numbers with the high water marks within the 9-year survey period. Measuring people ages 6 and up, skiing peaked in 2010, when there were 11,504,000 participants, decreasing 24.8% to 8,649,000 participants in 2014. Similarly, camping peaked in 2009, with 17,436,000 participants, decreasing 16.1% to 14,633,000 participants in 2014.

Beyond Blaming the Weather, What Is Happening?

I have been working with the family camping industry since 1982, although I started my business in the New England ski industry back in 1980. With an intimate understanding of both industries, one of my most fascinating recent reads was Hal Clifford’s “Downhill Slide: Why the Corporate Ski Industry Is Bad for Skiing, Ski Towns, and the Environment”. In this compelling exposé, Clifford documents the evolution of skiing from its roots in Scandinavia, through a growth spurt following the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid (New York), through the development of Sun Valley (Idaho) as the first destination ski resort back in 1935-1938, through the return of World War II’s 10^th Mountain Division veterans, through another growth spurt following the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley (California), through the “industrial tourism” that it became in the 1990s – when 3 major companies then controlled 24% of ticket sales from coast to coast. I believe that there are parallels between the downhill skiing and family camping industries.

The ski industry in the United States was essentially given birth in the first three decades of the twentieth century, including the development of Sun Valley as the first destination resort by railroad magnate W. Averill Harriman. By 1938, Harriman understood that there was far more income to be generated than what could be realized through lift ticket sales, adding tennis, golf, fishing, rodeo, hiking and swimming. The “golden age” of skiing took place in the 1950s. This was the period of time when 2,000 veterans from the Army’s 10^th Mountain Division returned home from the Italian and Austrian Alps to kick-start the post-war ski industry, founding, managing, or running the ski schools at 62 American ski resorts. In New England alone, there are 605 former ski areas (most operating in the 1950s) that are documented by the New England Lost Ski Areas Project. Most of these were “mom and pop” operations run on snowy hills, with rudimentary rope tows run by the likes of tractors or old Packard automobile engines. In Massachusetts alone, my company has at least two campground clients with campsites that are partially located on the remnants of the slopes and trails of former ski areas.

In the 5 years following the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, skier days increased by 50%, with the greatest increase going to destination reports. The handwriting was on the wall for the mom and pop areas attempting to compete. A decade later, in 1975, there were 745 ski areas in the United States, a number that would drop to 509 by the year 2000. Despite the advent of snowboarding, total visits to ski areas stagnated in the 1980s and 1990s, numbers which would have witnessed double-digit declines if not for snowboarding. According to Clifford, only 15% of beginners go on to become serious skiers. Although 33 million Americans considered themselves skiers or snowboarders (at the time when the book was written, in 2003), only a third of them actually go out even once in any given year.

Part of the problem with the ski industry is the aging of the post-war baby boomers. Statistics have shown that, once they hit the age of 44, the average skiers hang up their skis for the last time. The changing population does not bode well for the ski industry. People today have less leisure time, less disposable income, and new interests – such as fitness clubs and the Internet. Another strike against skiing is that it requires a learning curve, and most people today want instant gratification.

Lift Tickets Equate to Campsites

It is a well-documented fact that most of the ski industry is no longer in the business of selling lift tickets. Even with single-day lift ticket prices topping $100.00 at many ski resorts this past season, those ticket sales cannot begin to cover expenses. In the year 2000, a Poma detachable quad chairlift would cost just under $3 million to install, plus another 15% for site preparation. Then it would cost about $14,000 per month for the electricity to turn the lift. At the same time, an 8-place gondola carrying passengers only 2,200 ft. would run about $6 million, with a monthly electric bill of about $20,000. Not pocket change, even some of the biggest corporate players have faced economic challenges.

Then there are snowmaking costs. Again in the year 2000, the air compressors to run a bank of snow guns cost about $250,000 each, basic snow guns cost about $1,000 each, fan-driven snow machines cost about $10,000 each, and the electricity to make the snow might cost a large resort $1,000,000 per season. Clifford cites an interview with the general manager of Sugarbush Resort (Vermont), who said at the time that his snowmaking costs were $1,000 per acre per inch, with a monthly electric bill of $300,000 to $400,000. For all of this money, skiers and snowboarders get snow conditions that are as predictable as a MacDonald’s hamburger … something that not every skier actually wants. Whether or not skiers demanded the industry improvements, or whether they got caught up in the competitive one-upmanship of corporate skiing, the industry has changed. Just like the cruise industry, the theme park industry, and perhaps what is beginning to happen with camping.

In the ski industry, the profit center is now real estate development, with million dollar building lots for second homes, condominiums for every middle-to-upper income level, fractional ownership, absentee homeowners, and artificial “ski villages” that are designed to keep all of the dollars spent in the resort’s pockets. People who were once attracted to authentic ski towns and their ambiance have found those towns displaced by the new manufactured village concept, with bars, restaurants, shops and hotels all designed to capitalize upon that now lost romantic notion of the ski towns of yesteryear.

At one extreme is the relatively new concept of the private membership ski resort. The Yellowstone Club, in Montana, is only open to members who can demonstrate a net worth in excess of $3 million, paying an initiation fee of $250,000 and an annual $16,000 membership fee – along with the mandatory purchase of property at the resort. Then there is The Hermitage Club, in Vermont, (located at the former Haystack Mountain, one of my favorites back in the day), with an initiation fee of only $75,000 and billboards along Interstate 91 in Connecticut and Massachusetts touting “your own private ski resort”.

The good news is that there is a backlash in the ski industry, with a growing popularity of back-to-basics skiing, often cooperatively owned, at ski areas like Vermont’s Mad River Glen, California’s Bear Valley, and British Columbia’s Shames Mountain. There are also many of the healthier “mom and pop” areas that are still maintaining their niches in their markets.

Yes, there are many parallels between what is happening in the ski industry and the family camping industry in North America. I will leave it to my readers to connect the dots. The bottom line is that there are forces that are driving up the price of camping, that profits cannot be based solely upon campsite fees, and that there is plenty of room for diversity. There are many definitions for the “perfect camping experience”, and it will continue to be the goal of every campground to effectively market itself within its niche target market. Define your park’s experience, and then do everything you can to get the word out, helping the people who want precisely what you are offering to find you.

Change might be inevitable, but the survival – and continuing success – of your business is held within your own hands.

For any business, the home run measure of success for any marketing tool is the generation of an immediate sale. Sometimes that means the purchase of an item or the ordering of a service. In the hospitality industry, that immediate sale translates into a reservation for a stay. Those are the home runs, but the game is won in multiple innings, the cumulative effect of singles, doubles, runs batted in, and strike-outs.

What are those lesser, long-term measures of marketing success that, taken cumulatively, can often exceed the impact of the immediate sales? Allow me to outline a few of them.

Engagement

Engagement is the encouragement of long-term customer loyalty. It can be argued that short-term sales can sometimes be in conflict with the interests of long-term customer engagement. For example, coercing an immediate sale through the use of deep discounting will almost never lead to long-term customer loyalty. Rather, it likely leads to either one-time sales or the development of customers who will only purchase again when you offer another deep discount. Customer engagement can be built through expertise in your field, the presentation of useful information, the delivery of frequently updated content, and interaction with your customer base.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is essentially the development of a company’s name recognition and reputation. It is far easier to accomplish for an established name brand with hundreds or thousands of locations to build brand awareness than it is for an individual start-up business. Think in terms of McDonald’s versus Charlie’s Burger Joint. Brand awareness goes beyond simple name recognition. It requires that consumers not only recognize your business name but also that they will be more likely to recall the name in the future and correctly associate it with the special attributes of your business. For example, you might be one of a dozen and a half campgrounds in the area, but you want to be remembered as THE place to camp in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I have routinely documented instances where a campground that changed its name over 10 years ago continues to get business from people who recall the old business name (and are directed to the park’s website via the old URL, which we maintain.)

Customer Evangelism

Customer evangelism is good old word-of-mouth advertising on steroids. The term has obvious biblical origins, where surrogates are engaged to spread the good news, in this case regarding your business. Evangelists do not take their roles lightly, and they do not agree to take on their responsibilities without first being truly converted themselves. They have to really believe in a product or service before they will agree to act as voluntary advocates on your behalf. Their evangelism can take many forms, from direct referrals to social media posts to loyalty programs to affinity groups. A park’s seasonal campers might be one such affinity group. The bottom line is that any of these are unpaid customers who are perhaps your company’s best possible spokespersons, primarily because they are spreading the word based upon their authentic personal beliefs.

Customer Loyalty

Sharing some characteristics with both engagement and evangelism, customer loyalty is the result of an ongoing reassurance that your business is meeting the needs of its existing customers. A new website, an eye-catching billboard, or a well-crafted video or TV commercial can serve to not only generate new business but to reassure your existing customers that they made the right decision in choosing your business. Make them proud of their decision and help to give them a sense of belonging and involvement. This, in turn, is an added step toward taking loyalty to the next step … evangelism.

Lead Generation

Sometimes potential customers are not ready to make an immediate purchase or buying decision. For example, it is not easy to persuade people to buy snowmobiles in the summer. Beyond the attempt at timing your marketing efforts for when they will be the most effective, lead generation is a means of qualifying a broad list of prospective customers into a narrower list that is more likely to make a future purchase. Do you ask them to become involved? Try to encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter, join your e-mail list, or sign up for special offers and incentives. In any case, a potential customer who has taken the initiative of any such “next step” is that much closer to becoming an actual customer.

In summary, do not be discouraged if every marketing effort does not translate into immediately measurable sales. Marketing is a cumulative, long-term effort, not some sort of “all your eggs in one basket”, “get rich quick” scheme. Present your business in a professional, consistent manner, and it will eventually reap the rewards of a bountiful harvest.

I am often asked about advertising specialties, long considered somewhat of a neglected stepchild of conventional advertising. Also known as promotional advertising, ad specialties are products that are imprinted or labelled with a company’s logo, tagline or other promotional message. The intention is to either create or expand upon brand awareness. We are all familiar with these items that we find at trade events – everything from pens and calendars to mugs and koozies to mouse pads and thumb drives, as well as the imprinted bags that hold our collections of loot. Sometimes referred to as swag, baubles or , promotional products are intended to be useful to the recipient, carrying some degree of intrinsic value that will enhance the reputation of the sponsoring company.

Well, sometimes the concept is well-executed and works effectively, sometimes it is a waste of money, and sometimes it can do more harm than good.

When done properly, advertising specialties can enhance your image, particularly if your company is new in its field. An eye-catching item can build brand awareness, and we all know that everybody loves both gifts and freebies. Particularly if the item is useful enough to be retained for more than a day, it can be an ongoing reminder of your company and the services that it offers.

Done poorly, the money spent can cheapen the image of your company. It is essential that your logo and branding be consistent with their application in your conventional advertising. Never settle for a modified version of your logo, simply because it will reduce the cost. If your logo is in full color, it is not going to be as effective in promoting your business if it is displayed in one or two standard colors, although those are sometimes your only options.

Be sure that the item(s) that you choose are appropriate for your business and the market that you are targeting. There should be some connection that will be immediately recognizable. Although lots of people think they are hilarious, you probably do not want your company’s logo on a whoopee cushion or dribble glass. In addition, a poorly made product (think of a pen that almost immediately breaks and leaks ink on the recipient’s clothing!) is not going to promote your business in a positive light. You are not going to connect with your market with a product that screams out the words “cheap” or “Made in China”.

Your goal should not be to produce an item so inexpensively that you are able to hand it out to thousands of people, most of whom have no interest in your business or the services that you offer. You want to produce an item that is clearly of value that can be somewhat selectively distributed to people who are not simply looking to add another free item to their bags. It is estimated that there are over 15,000 different types of advertising specialty products. According to Wikipedia, 30% of those items are t-shirts, baseball caps, or other wearable apparel. You need not try to compete with the companies that fill celebrity gift bags with expensive samples at film festivals and award ceremonies. Simply try to find one or more items that have a direct connection to your business and that will portray your business in a positive light.

The largest supplier of advertising specialties is the Promo Products division of Staples, but there are also many small suppliers who specialize in working with your particular industry. You should probably turn to them first for their special expertise. There are 5 primary categories for these products: Wearable items (that 30% share that I already mentioned), Calendars, Writing Instruments, Business Gifts, and “Everything Else”. That last category includes mugs, rulers and tape measures, luggage tags, key fobs, toys, sporting goods, and more.

For a campground, what might be some useful promotional items that you can hand out at camping shows and probably even sell in your store? Here is an abbreviated list of items that might have a connection with camping:

• Tire Pressure Gauge – There are a lot of tires on the typical camper and tow vehicle!
• Backpacks – It would be nice to at least encourage campers to get out and take a hike.
• Blankets – Particularly if you have a music festival or another event where people will be sitting on lawns.
• Caps – More and more people are concerned with shading themselves from sun exposure.
• Coolers – Also go well with outdoor events.
• First Aid Kits – You could help save somebody’s life!
• Flashlights – Perfect for those after-dark scavenger hunts.
• Hand Sanitizers – Of course, a larger size will have greater longevity.
• Jar Openers – These get handier the older we get!
• Keychains – Most of us see these on a daily basis, if you choose one that people will use.
• Pedometers – Another item to encourage exercise in the outdoors.
• Pet Products – Collapsible bowls for people taking their dogs hiking, or leashes for people who forgot to bring this required item.
• Stadium Cushions – Everybody likes a little extra padding!
• Sunscreen – Another sun protection item for outdoorspeople.
• Tape Measures – An item that always comes in handy.

As you can tell, most of these suggestions come from the “Everything Else” category. If you are looking for other ideas, talk to your screen printed or embroidered apparel supplier for their suggestions. Try to choose items that people do not already have more of than they need, and try to find items that will hold up and stand the test of time. These are the keys to keeping your business in the forefront of your customers’ minds.

So many people obsess about the amount of traffic that their websites receive, putting far too much emphasis on the numbers of visitors rather than the behavior of those visitors. This would be somewhat similar to a suburban shopping mall acting like business was great because the mall is packed with teens on a Friday or Saturday night, out to enjoy a social experience but spending little if anything with any of the mall merchants. Anybody who has ever worked in sales quickly learns the difference between people who like to try on clothing versus people who actually buy the clothing if it fits, people who like to kick tires versus people who are actually out to buy a car, or people who like to attend open houses versus people who are prequalified to buy a new home.

With a website, the metrics that count are goals and conversions. Goals in the outdoor hospitality industry are generally going to be reservation-related calls to action, and conversions are when visitors respond to a website’s persuasive abilities. Until that happens, your website is simply spinning the wheels on one of those old-fashioned hit counters that were ever-present on websites in the early days of the Internet.

The conversion of traffic to buyers is a complex process that relies upon several factors. Discount incentives are always the most effective online selling tool, but those are not always practical for every type of business. More subtle but equally effective factors might include time-sensitivity (Enter “free firewood bundle” in the comments box when making your reservation before midnight tonight!), limited inventory (Only 3 campsites still available for Father’s Day Weekend!), or a connection with another event (Reserve your site for the weekend of July 25-26, camping only 4 miles from the Downtown Food Festival!) are all viable incentives.

Incentives should not be limited to a single call to action. Your website should offer far more than simply a means for making a reservation. The time of that reservation (or the reservation confirmation) is also the time to offer an incentive for an extended stay, offer upgrades, and offer add-on services.

Okay, you understand the concept of website conversions, but how do you convert your basic traffic into buyers? If you are running Google Analytics or another traffic analysis tool on your website, you are probably familiar with the concept of “bounce”. These are people who visit your site and leave almost as quickly as they arrived for any one of a variety of reasons. (Note that the vast majority of traffic that appears in bounce rates consists of robots. Our concern is with actual visitors who get frustrated and leave.) It is quite simple to deduce that the means to reduce your site’s bounce rate is to increase the time that visitors spend on your site. The bonus here is that there is a direct correlation between the amount of time that a visitor spends on your site and the likelihood of that visitor taking your prescribed course of action.

Quite simply, your challenge is to determine ways to get visitors to increase the amount of time they spend on your site. Here are a few tips:

• Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket (otherwise known as your site’s Home page). Distribute useful content throughout the pages of your site, encouraging visitors to click through to learn more.
• Keep your site’s navigation highly intuitive. Make it crystal clear how a first-time visitor will find his or her way from point A to point B. Navigation should be consistent from page to page, located either across the top of the page or in a left side column, and it should be clearly labeled. Few people are going to click on a navigational link that presents a shortened equivalent of “Can You Guess What You Will Find If You Click Here?”
• Present a visual flow that encourages exploration. A wall of text will not work. Balance text and graphics with a liberal dose of “white space”, a visual relief from sensory overload.
• Keep the most essential content front and center, in newspaper parlance what is called “above the fold”. To sell newspapers, the lead stories are not buried at the bottom of the front page, initially invisible to a prospective buyer at a newsstand. With your website, try to present your case without requiring the user to scroll down the page (because that scrolling might never occur).
• Keep your content easy to read. Choose font sizes and colors wisely, ensuring that there is sufficient contrast with background colors. Use headlines, bullet points, sidebars, and graphics to encourage engagement but, above all else, keep things simple.
• Provide at least some content on your site that is not easily found elsewhere. Most people enter a site through its Home page (a website’s equivalent of your home’s front door); however, unique content that is of interest to your potential customers can present a side entrance with a very prominent welcome mat, particularly once that unique content gets indexed by search engines. This could be a blog, a consolidation of information compiled from other resources, or links to articles of interest to your visitors.

The common obsession with traffic, at the expense of conversions, misses the function and purpose of a commercial website. Focus on what is truly important, and you will be putting your website truly to work for your business.

If you are a typical American, you probably started your day with a cup of coffee. According to the most recent National Coffee Drinking Trends (NCDT) report, published by the National Coffee Association, 54% of Americans over the age of 18 drink an average of 3.1 cups of coffee each day. More casual coffee consumption is practiced by 83% of the public. Of these coffee drinkers, 65% enjoy the beverage with breakfast. In total, consumers in the United States spend $40 billion on coffee each year. Impressive statistics, but what do they mean for you?

Just as there are all types of coffee products, there are all types of campgrounds. Trends change over time, and demands ebb and flow for various types of coffee and styles of camping. Remember the days of coffee percolators? They were an integral part of a long-running advertising campaign for Maxwell House. Today, half the population could probably not even identify a coffee percolator in a line-up of obsolete kitchen appliances.

Today, there is a market for high-end artisanal brews, as evidenced by the $950 million in annual sales at Starbucks; however, the vast majority of Americans do not have an appreciation for single-origin coffee brewed from freshly-ground beans. Those markets are limited, in a similar manner as the markets are limited for other high-end beverages such as loose teas, cask conditioned ales, single malt Scotch whiskies, or small batch bourbons.

According to the market research firm Euromonitor, only about 8% of the coffee purchased in America is whole bean coffee, meaning that sales of pre-ground coffee outpace whole bean coffees by 12.5 to 1. When it comes to coffee, it seems that most of us prefer convenience over quality. Driving that fact home is the astronomical growth in sales of K-Cups, the ubiquitous pre-portioned coffee pods. Years ago, the coffee kings in America were Folger’s (owned by consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble) and Maxwell House (owned by another giant, Kraft Foods). Today, K-Cups from Keurig Green Mountain account for 20% of the total coffee market, not only more than any other company but more than Folger’s and Maxwell House combined. Again according to Euromonitor, the sales of coffee pods have grown by 138,325% over the past 10 years!

Going back to the National Coffee Association’s NCDT, it is important to note that Hispanic Americans far outpace all other ethnic groups in the consumption of coffee, including gourmet coffees and espresso-based beverages. Also comprising the fastest growing ethnic group in the country, this is a very positive sign for the overall industry.

Henry Ford, in the days of skyrocketing sales of his Model T, commented that he could “sell to the masses and eat with the classes.” In other words, fortunes can be made by providing products or services that appeal to the broadest possible market. In today’s world, most businesses succeed by appealing to mass markets through low prices (the Wal-Mart and Amazon models,) although small businesses usually excel by catering to the niche and local markets that might not be profitable pursuits by mass marketers. Let’s translate this information into concepts that directly relate to your campground.

1. Keep in step with current trends. Coffee consumption has been on the increase in recent years, in large part thanks to the coffee pods that have made things quick and easy. Are cabins and other rentals the quick and easy way for new people to be introduced to camping? If so, are you making the process as simple as possible, or are you still requiring your guests to bring their own towels and linens?
2. If you think of your campground as a supermarket, are you still devoting all of your shelf space to Folger’s and Maxwell House? When the world is changing around you, you cannot succeed by becoming stagnant. If your guests want 50-amp electric, pull-thru sites and free wi-fi, it is time to meet their needs.
3. Starbucks has proven that people will not hesitate to pay the price for premium products and services. If you are running the Starbucks of campgrounds, you can probably raise your rates without fear of losing business.
4. The Hispanic-American market has outpaced every other ethnic group in the consumption of coffee. Are you surprised? What is your campground doing to reach out to this large and expanding market of consumers … or are you continuing to miss the boat?
5. Are you capitalizing upon the fact that 65% of coffee drinkers consume the beverage first thing in the morning? A selection of fresh-brewed coffees in your store can draw people in every morning, encouraging the sale of a long list of other merchandise that goes far beyond donuts and the morning newspaper.

In general, it pays to keep an eye on industry trends, only one of which centers around coffee consumption. Put the old percolator in the attic of your logic, and do your best to reach out to both existing and prospective guests in new and innovating ways.

Last week, on a quick trip to Nebraska, I rented a car at Eppley Airfield in Omaha. I had reserved the car rental online in advance. My basic rental fee with Thrifty Car Rental came to $155.72. Sort of like a base rate for a campsite … or is it?

Transparency in pricing is more important than ever these days. Consumers do not want to feel cheated or like they are being subjected to fraudulent pricing practices. When you dine at a restaurant, you are not charged extra for the use of a table, to have your meal served on plates, using the restrooms, or for the use of flatware and napkins. These are part of the overhead of being in the restaurant business. Yes, we all know that there are so-called “extras”, many of which apply to various types of recreational services. Unless there is special package pricing, if you schedule a round of golf, you expect to pay extra for a golf cart; if you go skiing, you expect to pay extra for ski rentals or lessons; and if you hit the bowling lanes, you will pay to rent bowling shoes if you need them.

Unfortunately, the rental car industry takes add-ons and hidden charges to a whole new level in the stratosphere. My $155.72 car rental came to $275.56 when I returned the vehicle. Mind you, this increase is despite the fact that I declined all of the added insurance (which is covered by my own auto insurance) and declined the added driver charge for my wife (a fee which is actually illegal in the State of California). The previously undisclosed, added fees included:

• An “RAF” fee of $4.99 per day (which presumably has something to do with renting a vehicle at an airport, even if you simply take a shuttle from the airport to a nearby rental location in some instances).
• An “Occupancy Tax” of $8.00 (which I presume is an added fee that helps to pay Thrifty’s rent).
• An “AP Rec Fee” of 12%. I have no idea what this is.
• An “SEC Fee” of 2%. I also have no idea what this is.
• A “Vehicle Tax” of 4.5%. This one is also difficult to explain.

Part of the problem with the rental car industry is the lack of competition. Most of us can rattle off a list of rental car companies; however, according to a report published in the IndependentTraveler.com, the fact is that 94% of the rental car industry in America is controlled by only three companies:

1. Hertz – which also owns Advantage, Dollar and Thrifty
2. Avis – which also owns Budget and Zipcar
3. Enterprise – which also owns Alamo and National

In fact, when we landed in Omaha and went to the car rental counters, the Thrifty Car Rental booth was unoccupied, with a sign directing customers to the adjacent Dollar Car Rental space. A near-monopoly is never in the interest of consumers. As a case in point, let me present one more tidbit from my car rental experience.

I generally use a bank debit card to pay for my travel expenses. When doing so, it is typical for a hold on funds to be applied, exceeding the anticipated cost of the service by $200.00 or $250.00. According the Thrifty, there would be an additional hold of $350.00 (a bit excessive). More outrageously, if you used a debit card, they would first run a credit check (which, in itself, is harmful to one’s credit score) AND charge you a $15.00 fee for the credit report! When I questioned this practice, the clerk pointed toward the other car rental counters and said that they had “all decided to introduce this policy” the previous week. I am not an attorney, but I believe that this is the textbook definition of the term “collusion”. I used a credit card as an alternate form of payment.

Needless to say, I am not happy with my most recent car rental experience, and I will never again rent a vehicle from Thrifty or Dollar. I will probably also file a complaint with either regulatory authorities or the Office of the Attorney General in the State of Nebraska (if not both). If this experience involved camping, I would not be the classic “Happy Camper”.

If you are wondering how this all might relate to camping, ask yourself if your rates are as transparent as possible. Every campground is going to require cancellation fees, guest fees, premium rates (and minimum stays) for holiday weekends, and premium charges for premium sites. The important part of the equation is for those fees to be fully disclosed at the time of reservation, leading to no surprises at the time of arrival or final check-out. If your state or county imposes a lodging tax on your cabin rentals, be sure that your campers are aware of that fee at the time of reservation.

There are other fees that you may want to reconsider because they are difficult for your customers to rationalize. These might include early check-in fees and wi-fi access charges. Then there are other fees that are certain to meet with customer disapproval. These include surcharges for the use of credit cards, along with transaction fees (often referred to as “convenience charges”) that accompany online reservations. These, like the “Occupancy Tax” and “Vehicle Tax” at the airport car rental counter, should be built into your basic pricing.

If you try to see your pricing structure from your customers’ perspective, you will avoid the type of dissatisfaction that will only hurt your business in the long run. In order for your customers to see things clearly requires transparency on your part. Ask yourself if it is time to take another look!

I am writing this article while waiting for road service to be scheduled through a national auto club. It is a beautiful late winter Saturday in New England, with perfect snow conditions and not a cloud in the sky, what skiers refer to as a “bluebird day”. I awakened at 5:00 o’clock this morning, with plans to hit the slopes at one of my favorite Vermont ski destinations. Unfortunately, not far from home, one of my rear tires went flat, and the jack that came with my car is about as useful as a pet rock.

After attempting to change the tire with the “pet rock”, I had no choice but to call for roadside assistance. First, I was serenaded with the most annoying music on hold while waiting for the company to find an available service provider in my area, only to be told that they were having no luck in that search. Three or four phone calls and about an hour later —at least the auto club was giving me status updates— I was told that they had located a service provider that was available and would send a truck within an hour.

If you are in the business of providing roadside assistance, the fact that people will call with service requests should not catch you off guard. When a member needs emergency service, it is not time to be negotiating arrangements with local service providers. Those contracts should have been arranged long ago. Nor is it time to wonder whether it might be time to invest in additional telephone agents. When somebody’s vehicle is disabled at the side of the road, I can assure you that they do not want to listen to music on hold.

Two and a half hours later, my day is shot, but the spare tire has been mounted and I am off to the tire store to have the flat repaired. Our leisure time is limited these days, the pace of life is fast, and nobody has either the time or the inclination to needlessly wait. How is your campground fitting into the timeline when it comes to making your guests needlessly wait?

1. Registration – On a Friday afternoon, do you have a line of guests waiting for their turn at your registration desk? How long do they have to wait? The ideal wait time, from a guest’s perspective, is about 1 minute. Take a tip from the Montage Deer Valley Hotel, in Park City, Utah. When guests pull up to their entrance, the guests are immediately greeted by a valet, who gets their names and radios the information to the front desk. Upon entering the lobby, the guests are greeted by name and already have a folder, including room keys, ready to go. They simply sign off a confirmation of services, and the host escorts them to their room, pointing out hotel features and amenities along the way. When guests have advance reservations, their arrival should not be treated as if it is a surprise to your registration staff. Instead of making people anonymously wait in line, this process is speedy and personalized … and would be so easy to adapt to the campground registration process.
2. Bathroom Cleaning – This is a classic double-edged sword. Your guests expect clean bathroom buildings, but they do not want the entrance blocked by a yellow folding sign upon their arrival. Of course, this task should be scheduled for the lowest demand times possible, but it should also be completed as quickly and efficiently as possible. It is not time for a member of your janitorial staff to be repeatedly running back to your maintenance building to retrieve a forgotten brush or cleaning compound.
3. Boat Rentals – When a camper wants to rent a boat, what are your typical wait times? If a family wants to get out on your lake, they want to do it right then and there, not an hour from now, while the kids are restlessly waiting. With the exception of popular attractions at major theme parks, people are generally unwilling to wait in line. Even Disney is working to resolve this problem, with a new FastPass+ program that allows guests to reserve their park experiences up to 30 days in advance from home, a mobile app, or park kiosks. Do whatever you can to streamline the process of keeping your guests active and – consequently – happy!
4. Propane Refills – How long does a camper have to wait to get a propane tank refill at your park? In some instances, campers have no problem leaving behind a propane tank to be refilled and picked up later. On the other hand, the fact that there are over 800 Blue Rhino retail locations throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, where empty tanks are quickly swapped for full tanks, suggests that there are quite a few people who would prefer not to wait.
5. Snack Bar Orders – If your campground has a snack bar, it is probably serving what by definition is known as “fast food”. How long does it take for the average order to be filled? According to a 2013 fast food performance study conducted by Quick Service Restaurant News, the average drive-thru order takes 3 minutes to fill, with an overall correlation between speed and accuracy – both important factors. Is your snack bar being staffed by one or more employees who are working double-duty with other job responsibilities? If necessary from a financial standpoint, limit the hours of your snack bar operation to high demand hours, when it can be adequately and dedicatedly staffed by employees who have been trained to prepare the food properly and efficiently. How many guests are going to return to your snack bar after a disappointing initial experience?
6. Check-Out – The check-out procedure at your park should be even faster and more efficient than the check-in process, but speediness should not be at the expense of covering the essentials. Ask your guests if they enjoyed their stay, if there was anything that could have been done to make their stay more enjoyable (and take notes, rather than committing this valuable feedback to memory!), and if they would like to book a subsequent stay (even if they were disappointed, because you would like an opportunity to make things right!). If they tell you that they absolutely loved their stay, ask them if they would do you a favor and put their thoughts into words in a review on TripAdvisor or another important travel review site, handing them instructions that they can later reference.

From check-in through check-out – and every moment in between – do you best to ensure that your guests are enjoying every minute of their stay that is within your control. Guests who are enjoying their time at your park will spend more money during their stay, and guests who enjoy their overall stay are guests who will return again and again for years to come.

By now you have heard about the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing for SkyMall, the iconic airline shopping catalog. For a quarter century, SkyMall marketed its products to up to 650 million airline passengers each year, according to the company’s own survey statistics, which also claimed that 70% of passengers read through the catalog on every flight. Having negotiated contracts with most of the major air carriers in the United States, 90% of passengers found themselves within inches of the latest SkyMall catalog. The company claimed in 2009 that 60% of its sales came through its website and accounted for $80,500,000 in revenue. From this number, it is easy to deduce that the remaining catalog orders yielded total sales revenues of over $134,000,000.

After the typical passenger had read through the airline magazine, even before memorizing the locations of the nearest emergency exits, the next item of interest in the seat back pocket was usually the latest SkyMall catalog. In it, you could find everything from a robot to clean your roof gutters to a laser helmet that would regrow hair on a bald head to a pepper grinder that looks like a full-sized baseball bat. Ahem, let’s just say that they sold the same kind of non-essential merchandise that is hawked on late-night cable TV.

Anyway, parent company Xhibit Corp complained that the reason for the demise of the SkyMall catalog had less to do with a stagnant concept and a goofy product line than the onslaught of digital devices that are now permitted for use in-flight. Now that weary travelers could access Google, eBay and Amazon, where they could also compare prices and read reviews, why would they want to thumb through a catalog? In fact, Xhibit Corp’s acting CEO, Scott Wiley, actually insinuated that SkyMall was a victim in the process that led to its downfall.

The fact is that SkyMall evolved from its initial concept back in 1989, when it actually relied upon the technology of the time, and was hemorrhaging massive amounts of cash. At that time, it was supposed to stock all of the catalog’s merchandise in a network of warehouses located near airport terminals. Customers were supposed to place orders using the “air phones” that used to be built into the backs of airline seats, after which the items were supposed to be rushed to the airport’s baggage claim for pick-up by the customer. Take note of my emphasis on the word “supposed”. The concept didn’t work, but the company did not throw in the towel.

The rebranded concept would now feature goofy products that the company did not own or warehouse, with the individual manufacturers of those products paying for the privilege of display advertising space in the SkyMall catalog. The company now made its money from the sale of that advertising space, either through (higher) flat rates (what they called their “Advertising Program”) or lower rates that would be supplemented by a percentage of sales (what they called their “Merchandising Program). In each instance, SkyMall also charged its advertisers a 5-6% “operational fee”. The advertisers would then be responsible for drop-shipping the merchandise to customers. The least expensive advertising space in the quarterly catalog was a quarter-page, where the most recent flat fee amounted to $41,100.00. Clearly, advertisers needed to sell a lot of baseball bat pepper grinders just to recover that advertising cost, let alone turn a profit!

If SkyMall reinvented its business model once, it could have done so again, rather than simply claiming that it was a victim of advances in technology. If airline passengers are picking up their smartphones and tablets instead of a catalog that is admittedly expensive to print, find a way to get your product onto those mobile devices. If you look at the company’s most recent business model (the one that led to the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing), you will see that it is based upon advertising sales rather than a regard for the customer, and that concept is a formula for disaster. To succeed today, particularly in what is essentially an e-commerce model, a company must engage its customers and play the game on the customers’ terms, with an emphasis on service rather than sales. A company needs to build long-term customer relationships, not simply generate one-time sales; however, when the business model is primarily based upon advertising sales, there is little incentive to build loyalty with the end consumer. There is actually a disconnection in this regard.

What does this all mean for your campground or other small business? The first question to ask yourself is whether you are operating under a 25 year old business plan. Believe it or not, there are still campgrounds that do not accept credit cards, despite the fact that customers overwhelmingly want to use credit cards. There are also campgrounds that do not process reservations online, requiring customers to call them and inevitably enter into a game of telephone tag. In those instances, the customer is almost always going to be the one to call it quits, finding another campground that will process the reservation online and accept a deposit using the credit card of the customer’s choice.

How about your website? A majority of your customers are surfing the Web using mobile devices. Is your website mobile-friendly, or is it driving those customers away? How about your activity schedule? Are you still doing the same old, same old Christmas in July that you were doing back in 1979? How about your office practices at the time of arrival and registration? When guests are exhausted after a four-hour drive in Friday afternoon traffic, are you making them wait even longer at an inadequately staffed registration desk?

Using the SkyMall experience as a guide, take a close and honest look at your own business, putting aside practices that may have worked 25 years ago but are a bit out of touch with today’s rapidly changing world and customer expectations. Embrace not only the latest technology, but embrace the customers that are your key to continued success!

Nobody needs to be convinced these days that their business needs to have a website. What surprises me is how many people think that the website that was built 4 or 5 years ago, before the commanding surge in the use of mobile devices, could be adequately serving their needs today. Let me simply say that times have changed.

Statistics compiled by Google, based upon the Google Analytics software that is running on websites around the world (and probably including your own) demonstrate that 50% of all website traffic is now mobile. In fact, this past holiday season, 22.5% of all online sales came through mobile devices (which are defined as either phones or tablets). Those numbers are impressive.

Google is now warning website owners if their sites fall short of being mobile-friendly … what they refer to as “critical mobile usability errors”, with the presumption being that these sites will soon be penalized in search results. Google is reportedly ready to begin downgrading those sites that are not configured for proper display on smartphones. The impact of that upon an older website could be tremendous, since the #1 source of new traffic to most websites is generated through organic searches on Google.

Taking steps in that direction, if you currently perform a Google search from your phone, the search engine results page will now label sites that are deemed to be mobile-friendly. Sites that fail that test typically display text that is too small to read on a phone, links that are too close together for fingers to navigate, or the lack of a mobile viewport (requiring users to pinch and zoom in order to view content). A site that is not mobile-friendly is not only at risk of losing out in its search ranking, it is losing its owner business today.

Let me demonstrate. I just performed a quick check of the Google Analytics on the conventional website of one of our clients, confirming that within the past 30 days, the lion’s share of the site’s traffic came from the users of mobile devices. The breakdown was 47.56% of visitors using smartphones, 14.98% using tablets, and only 37.45% using either a desktop or laptop computer. Keeping in mind that this is not a mobile-optimized site, the smartphone users visiting this site were spending only 60% of the amount of time on the site as the dwindling numbers of users of conventional computers. The bounce rate (the number of visitors who arrive at a site, then leave very quickly) was about 64% higher for smartphone users. Users of tablets, with larger displays, were somewhat more tolerant.

Nobody would have imagined this scenario a few years ago. Considering the fact that there is a direct correlation between the amount of time spent on a website and the likelihood of the user taking the intended course of action (in the instance of a campground, typically this means making a reservation request), these numbers are foreboding.

Before You Panic, Check Your Site

Fortunately, Google has provided a quick online test that will let you know whether or not your site is mobile-friendly. Go to the following link, where you may enter your URL:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

If your site passes the test, congratulations are in order. If it fails the test, it is time to at least think about budgeting for a replacement. The next question involves what type of mobile solution will best suit your needs. For all practical purposes, there are three choices.

• Responsive Web Design: This is the option that is recommended by Google. A responsive website serves the same site content to all devices, with a fluid page layout that adapts to each device. These sites are easy to maintain, but they may be expensive.
• Separate Mobile Site: This was the preferred option prior to the onset of responsive design. It involves the construction of separate mobile content. User’s devices are detected and shown content that is specifically built for that device, or they are redirected to a mobile-specific URL. These sites are more difficult to maintain (because content is duplicated among pages) and they do not present consistent content across all devices. For these reasons, this option is falling out of favor.
• A Mobile App: This is a separate application that is built for mobile users. It must be downloaded and installed by the user, and it is often used in conjunction with a website. An app has a usability advantage for smartphone users, but the costs are both prohibitive and unnecessary for most small businesses, both upfront and when it is time to maintain and update content.

The bottom line is that, if you are concerned about mobile traffic to your site (and you should be concerned!), there are decisions to be made, and you probably do not want to indefinitely delay making those decisions. Your new site should adhere to a specific set of best practices. These include the avoidance of software that it not supported on most mobile devices, particularly Flash. (There are alternate ways of presenting animation, using CSS or JavaScript, that are mobile-friendly.) Your site should also not include text that is unreadable without zooming, content with a screen width that requires horizontal scrolling on small devices, or links that are not far enough apart for fat fingers to navigate.

There are new websites being launched every day that are based upon old methods. Investing in one of those today is roughly equivalent to going out to buy a new car but coming home with a horse and buggy instead.

My wife and I recently took a drive in the countryside, where we encountered an otherwise beautiful colonial farmhouse. It was in the process of being painted hot pink with purple accents and trim. Our first thoughts were sympathy for the neighbors and a renewed appreciation for the fact that our closest neighbor is a quarter mile away. Afterward, this encounter reminded me of just how critical the selection of color can be when trying to convey the proper impressions regarding a business.

Big Businesses Cannot Afford to Stumble

When it comes to color, no successful business has ever left those decisions to chance. If you go into a Sherwin-Williams or Benjamin Moore paint store, you will not see hot pink among the residential exterior color swatches. Simply put, the color is inappropriate for that type of application. The fashion industry, with billions of dollars on the line and outsourced production requiring months of advance production time, spends an enormous sum of money financing the Pantone Color Institute’s projections of color trends in fashion. The Spring 2015 Fashion Color Report was released during New York’s Fashion Week in September of 2014. Click here for an advance look at the colors that you will be seeing on the best-dressed people this spring.

Color, and the combination of colors, is far from limited to the paint and fashion industries. It is a commanding presence in the world of advertising and corporate branding. If your campground is part of a franchise, your colors will have been painstakingly researched and selected, referencing Pantone color standards that ensure consistency across applications. If your business, like most, is independently owned and unaffiliated, you will need to put a good deal of thought into making sound color choices, hopefully with the assistance of a marketing professional.

There is no question that there is a psychology behind each color that evokes a wide range of either positive or negative emotions. Some of these emotions are universal, and other color emotions vary from one culture to another. For example, the color yellow conveys varying emotions in Western cultures – everything from happiness and joy to cowardice and caution. It is considered sacred in most Eastern cultures, but it is the color of mourning in many Arabic cultures. Clearly, if your marketing is intended for primary consumption in your home country, the cross-cultural challenges are lessened.

Professional design is rarely limited to the primary (red, blue and yellow) and secondary (purple, orange and green) colors that make up the basic color spectrum. Looking at the Pantone Spring 2015 Fashion Color Report, your choice in green might very well be Treetop, Woodbine or Lucite Green, and your choice in blue might be Classic Blue, Dusk Blue, Aquamarine or Scuba Blue. These specific shades of color – and their combinations – will determine the color identity of your business, but the basic color emotions should influence your overall choices. With that in mind, the following is a listing of primary and secondary colors (plus black and grey), along with the highly generalized emotions that are associated with those colors in Western cultures.

• Red: Energy, excitement, action, and passion. Tempered with anger and danger.
• Orange: Visibility, refreshment and creativity. Tempered with caution.
• Yellow: Happiness, joy, and hope. Tempered with caution and cowardice.
• Green: Nature, environment, regeneration, and luck. Tempered with greed, envy, and inexperience.
• Blue: Peace, trust, quality, authority, and calm. Tempered with sadness and depression.
• Purple: Bravery, authority, power, and sophistication. Tempered with mourning.
• Black: Power and strength. Tempered with death and mourning.
• Grey: Wisdom and strength. Tempered with grief, boredom and depression.

Even if you have been aware of the psychology of color all along and have been giving it consideration when painting structures, ordering apparel, and designing both your online and print advertising (which, incidentally, use two separate sets of color formulas), you may want to give it even greater consideration from this point forward. Importantly, once you have made some informed decisions, use them consistently and precisely. Avoid settling for a “similar” color that will not serve to advance your identity. Above all else, do everything possible to avoid becoming that pink house that becomes a blight on the neighborhood.