The 60th celebration of the Northeast Campground Association’s (NCA) annual Conference on Camping wraps up today (March 20) after a busy Thursday saw dozens of park owners attend a variety of educational sessions and networking events.
Hosted at The Wellsworth Hotel in Southbridge, Mass., attendees spent Thursday working on their businesses by diving deep into online travel agencies (OTAs), building a playbook for opening day success, understanding the art of communication and more.
Industry experts like Ravi Parikh (CEO of RoverPass), Scott Foos (managing partner of Horizon Outdoor Hospitality), George Marchacos (a former park owner), and Christine Taylor (a partner at Goldberg Segalla) all provided attendees with key insights before the camping season begins.
Foos noted during his session that while the offseason can feel like a break, it is important for park owners to understand that improving is key, and that taking a complete break can actually hurt their business.
“Your season can be won by what you do in the offseason to improve it,” he noted.
Foos told attendees that it was key to review the past season to find out what worked well and what didn’t. From there, you have a foundation to build on for the next season as you look at employee/guest issues, processes and the property in general.
“If you don’t take the time to do a review of everything, then you are building on a foundation of assumptions,” Foos said.
He told attendees to look at:
- Guest Feedback: “What did guest praise you for consistently and what were the chief complaints? Sometimes silence is also a concern because it may mean low awareness of something.”
- Staffing & Training: “You want to hire for personality, because you can generally train the skills.” Foos told attendees that you want to hire your seasonal staff earlier, so that you know you are getting the best employees, and that training is key and shouldn’t be done at the last minute.
- Systems & Process Readiness: Foos noted that park owners should ensure that any large system changes are implemented at least 30 days before peak season. Owners should also have workflow, guest communication standards, policies and checklists in place, so that employees and campers clearly know the expectations.
- Maintenance & Site Standards: Foos highlighted that when a park owner takes the initiative to tackle an issue upfront, it is done on their timeline, with vendors they choose, at non-urgent pricing and before the guests are impacted. That is not the case when something is being done from a reactive position.
TODAY
NCA opens its expo this morning, which is set to feature around 40 to 50 vendors. It is also hosting morning sessions on AI and issues that can “Keep Managers Up at Night.”
Later today, the conference will be hosting a Farewell Dinner.
You can view an agenda by clicking here.
There is always a lot to keep track of, and App My Community has built a conference app that helps attendees navigate all the events and activities planned for the conference.
With the conference app, attendees can:
- View the full schedule of sessions and events
- Favorite sessions and receive reminders before they start
- Access the tradeshow floor map
- Browse the list of exhibitors and speakers
- Receive important conference updates through push notifications
