Today, consumers are interacting with more companies, sellers, and service providers online rather than by other means. They’re purchasing more types of food online through Uber Eats or DoorDash, having more groceries delivered online by Instacart or Walmart, making pet grooming reservations online with PetCo, selecting more entertainment online from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Peacock, so why shouldn’t they be viewing and reserving their RV and campground spaces online? They do so, now more than ever. But, many independent campground and RV parks face an uphill battle getting reservations online, because many campgrounds and parks own their own reservation systems, and that puts you, the independent owner, at a huge disadvantage.
At first look, it may seem ok that campgrounds own reservation systems. I mean, they’re in the business, and know it so, they should be better, Right? Well, not really, because in the long run it’s not ok. Let me explain… all the big airlines such as American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta, Alaska, JetBlue each have their own booking platforms, and put their own flights and partner airline flights first and place competitors’ flights way down on the list. So, when customers look on major airline sites for a flights from say Denver to Chicago, United (for example) will place its flights first then followed by other carriers such as Frontier Airlines, Spirit, or American Airlines. It’s only reasonable, after all it IS United’s site. But, United may not be giving the customer the best or cheapest fare. They even state that they may list their flights first before others.
Campgrounds and RV parks that own their own reservation site may well list their own properties first and list independent or competing properties such as yours much further down the list. They may not even disclose that they own the site. Most guests do not scroll past maybe three or four internet pages. So, if your property is listed on their site, your property may be on page five and may never be seen by a potential guest!
Apart from not being fair about listing your site, other reservation sites may not offer you the ability to maximize your revenue per available camping space. Mysites offers campground owners Dynamic Pricing, which can substantially increase the return on your property by using yield management parameters that you set for your property. Hotels and airlines use dynamic pricing all the time, and so does Amazon. It’s a common feature in today’s online reservation and ecommerce world. Simply, it’s the law of supply and demand with a bit of help from artificial intelligence programmed into our system for your specific campground that takes the guesswork out of pricing your available spaces properly and thereby maximizing your yield. Why let a space go for 20% less when you’re almost full? Our Dynamic Pricing Model allows you to set the parameters and go fishing! Let Mysites do the hard work and take the guess work out of the pricing your available spots, and put more money in your pocket and maybe even a trophy trout on your wall.
You also may be surprised to learn that campgrounds that own reservation and booking systems harvest your guests’ data. What do we mean by that? Well, your competitors use valuable customer marketing data such as cookies (bits of customer data dropped at each site inadvertently), browsing history, and actual personal information such as email and phone numbers that your potential guests leave behind each and every time they visit a reservation site. Using that golden data, they’ll market their properties to your guests year in and year out, and you’ll never know it! It’s unfair, it’s unethical, but it’s totally legal. At Mysites, we don’t own any properties…never have, and never will, because our interest is in serving our industry as we have for over 50 years.
Mysites never harvests your guests’ data for anti-competitive purposes or favors one property over another. We have no reason to do it because we’re truly an independent reservation system devoted to the recreation industry. Mysites offers you a fair deal, transparent listings, and the tools you need to help manage your property and maximize your revenue. We’d love to have the opportunity to show you what we can do to help your property be even more profitable this year and into the future. We’re family owned, just like many of our campground customers, and have been serving the RV and campground industry for two generations! So, don’t turn to strangers to help run your business, turn to family.
