One of the campground industry’s newest associations is the Rivers & Rockies Outdoor Lodging Coalition, which represents 13 Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states, most of which do not have a state association to address their government affairs and education needs.
Rivers & Rockies was created in 2024 by the boards of directors of the Colorado Campground & Lodging Owners Association (CCLOA) and the South Dakota Campground Owners Association (SDCOA), which saw an opportunity to help private parks across the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains by making available a large array of member-requested benefits.
Coalition states include Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Iowa.
Rivers & Rockies selected Mary Arlington to serve as the coalition’s executive director concurrently with her roles managing the Colorado and South Dakota associations. Arlington is known by many park operators across the midsection of the country, having been chief executive of the Colorado association for 10 years, while overseeing the South Dakota association for eight. She also led the Kansas association for 21 years, in addition to owning and operating an overnight campground in Kansas for a decade.
Now with a little more than year under her belt leading Rivers & Rockies, Woodall’s Campground Magazine Contributor Jeff Crider recently visited with Arlington to find out what Rivers & Rockies has achieved this past year, the new benefits the coalition is providing to its members, as well as Arlington’s perspectives involving the business climate affecting its territory as we head into 2026.
The following are highlights of their conversation, which took place as Arlington was preparing to attend the annual Campground Owners Expo (COE) in Branson, Mo.
WCM: What is the fundamental difference between the Rivers & Rockies Outdoor Lodging Coalition and the individual state associations that represent campground and RV park owners in Midwest and Rocky Mountain states?
Mary Arlington: Little to no difference, in most regards. No matter which state you’re in, when you join, you get all of Rivers & Rockies’ benefits. When CCLOA and SDCOA created Rivers & Rockies, they knew the values of having a state association and the values of a blended organization, and they considered it all as they built the new organization brick by brick, so to speak.
WCM: How has this past year been for Rivers & Rockies? Have you launched any new member benefits?
Arlington: Our first year was our chance to put everything into motion and fine-tune it. Essentially, everything was new, from our operational tools to our member benefits, even though we adopted much from CCLOA and/or SDCOA. Two months ago, we launched our second year, with several new and other enhanced programs.
In November, we launched three new programs. One is the “Rivers & Rockies Helpline.” Members can now attain help on virtually all topics relating to the operations, management and maintenance of outdoor lodging businesses.
We have also established a special legal helpline, which is handled through our partnership with Goldberg Segalla Partner Christine Taylor. She is a well-known and highly respected attorney in our industry.
We also launched an online education program that provides members with access to workshops they can attend on their own schedule and at their own pace. Our first workshop is a four-part series on our unique “ChatGPT RV Park Analyst Workshop.” This gives members an incredibly powerful tool that combines a wide variety of data and the Q&A power of ChatGPT. Not only is this particular workshop ready to use now. It will also continue evolving as the technology evolves. Consider this one an ongoing workshop.
Other workshops on other topics will be added later this winter.
WCM: Are you doing anything special to promote Rivers & Rockies during the Campground Owners Expo?
Arlington: Aside from being a part of the CAMP booth, a booth for all the state associations, and being available for assistance on our new workshop series, we are partnering with CampLife to unveil the first annual Rivers & Rockies + CampLife Trends Report in our members’ Meet-n-Greet on Wednesday, before the expo.
We’re launching it with three years of data, avoiding the first few years of the shifts our industry felt with the pandemic. The report focuses on our territory’s trends, which reveal pertinent insights that sare ometimes buried or lost in state and nationwide reports. All of our members will have access to it later in December.
WCM: That sounds impressive and will certainly benefit coalition members throughout these states. Have you launched any new discount programs?
Arlington: Yes, we have. Members still have access to more than two dozen cost-saving programs, and we’ve added a few more this year. We have savings plans on laundry equipment, music and movie licenses, ADP (employee HR), fleet fuel, propane, US Foods, UPS and FedEx, Campground Manpower, tires, radios and batteries, to name just a few. Members have been known to be instrumental in bringing more to us from their own vendor relationships.
WCM: Where can prospective members obtain a complete list of Rivers & Rockies’ discount programs?
Arlington: If it weren’t a moving — and growing — target, I’d create a photo of all the logos. Seems as sure as I make one, a new one comes along. For now, they can ask us and I’ll send some screenshots to them. Once they join, they can easily see the full list and all the details in the members-only portal.
WCM: Taken together, to what extent do these discount programs offset the cost of membership? Could members conceivably offset the cost of membership by using just a couple of these discount programs?
Arlington: Without a doubt, some can and do! For some, the annual propane savings alone save more than their dues payment. Unfortunately, not everyone needs propane. So, it’s tough to guess what the savings come to.
When I was a park owner, I’d study all of the programs and embrace the ones that made sense for my operations. If I still owned and I had these options, I’d be interested in at least 18 of our cost-saving programs, and the chances are great that I’d save more than my small park’s dues payment. Still, I never joined an association just to save money. I joined to stay current, to network and to advocate. But as long as there were savings options, why not save?
WCM: Are you doing any more in-person meetings or events?
Arlington: We continue to do our in-person Autumn Rendezvous events each year, one in Colorado and one in South Dakota. This year, we added one in Nebraska. These are a wonderful means of learning about (our members’) camping season, gaining a sense of what they now need from us, and building or strengthening friendships.
WCM: Do you also organize online meetings for members?
Arlington: Members can now participate in our monthly “Coffee by the Campfire” online event. Whether members are looking for operational or managerial input or I have pertinent industry questions, this is one way we can discuss things face-to-face. Of course, we still have our portal’s “Community Center” for more spontaneous and 24/7 sharing, without the face-to-face factor.
And, as of earlier this year, members themselves can instigate spontaneous or scheduled online meetings, usually between two or three people who are helping one another overcome a park issue when they find it helpful to go from typing to showing and talking. They can do all of this without me.
WCM: What has the coalition done this past year in terms of government affairs initiatives?
Arlington: In 2025, I visited with a number of U.S. legislators or their staff on multiple trips. We also sent emails to them regarding our positions on several national bills.
Through us, the South Dakota members were again very active for the 2025 session, taking action on 24 state bills. SDCOA was also the prime initiator to amend provisions pertaining to the process by which the qualifications of a registered voter are verified. The bill passed by a landslide, and it benefits all landowners.
WCM: What did this law do?
Arlington: When this became law on July 1, one could finally obtain a list of all the names that are registered to vote using your address, from which you can request that your county remove the ones you didn’t authorize. Campgrounds have been known to have a lengthy list of so-called residents, and the property owners wanted the right to update their property’s list. Naturally, it isn’t mandatory to maintain your list but, if you want to, you now can do so. It’s simply a right we assisted in establishing at the request of some members.
As we grow, so will our advocacy, yet SDCOA didn’t get to this point overnight. They’ve always had an eye on public affairs. In my time with them, we’ve seen how much work is involved in staying current from one administration to another, from one legislative term to the next, and from one session to the next. I recall a recent year where the incoming House had a 40% turnover, which meant we had a lot of newcomers with whom to establish relationships. It’s a dynamic environment! And there’s no finer time to start in any state than the present.
WCM: Are you planning any new marketing and government affairs initiatives next year?
Arlington: Our advocacy commitments are still evolving now that the members have come up for air from their summer camping season. Colorado members have requested several bills, and South Dakota members are evaluating how best to proceed on one new bill. It’s simply too early to say how the grassroots efforts will go, but our members all know that Rivers & Rockies is ready to guide and assist.
WCM: Do you plan to hire more consultants to help you with marketing next year?
Arlington: We already have! Not full-time, but we have project-specific assistants who are stepping up. It’s an amazing team that’s hard at work on a number of different tasks. We also have some new partnerships, which have been most beneficial to the workload.
WCM: Can you explain how Rivers & Rockies handles advocacy for your members?
Arlington: Advocacy is a mix of e-tools, volunteer members serving on a committee and the grassroots of all members. At the state and national levels, we have a sleek tool to assist in monitoring a seemingly infinite number of legislative bills. As we filter the list, and our Advocacy Committee further filters it, the members are given access to the whittled-down list. This then makes it a membership-wide program.
At the local level, this is almost completely member-driven. Sometimes we hear of county or community issues that need our attention through our own channels, such as regional and state advocacy organizations. But mostly that content comes to us from the park members who are directly facing the issues.
We have some new national advocacy plans for Q4 2026, which is exciting, but it’s far too early to discuss now!
WCM: You are personally a member of Campground Association of Management Professionals (CAMP). To what extent do you interact with other state campground industry associations during the course of the year? Are there any topics in which you conference with other state execs to get their input on issues you are facing?
Arlington: CAMP members aren’t a team, per se. We’re colleagues who understand one another and who “get” the lifestyle, the pressure, the joy and the relief. Although each exec is led by different boards, budgets and bylaws, the support gained through CAMP can be very healthy for both the exec and for their home organization.
Most of the execs communicate via a mass email for overall announcements or issues through the CAMP. I’m now on CAMP’s board of directors, which has me in the loop more regularly than before. CAMP’s president, Michael Moore, has been extremely responsive to queries, as was the previous president, Joann Delvescio, and all the ones before. I joined CAMP in 2003.
Additionally, it’s common for subsets of CAMP members to email, call or text one another as needed, depending on the topic. It might be a trend our members are facing or a trend we’re seeing in managing the associations.
Here are just three examples of probably 100 I could offer from this past year. The Colorado legislators have long been known to debate issues which the California assembly has debated. So, CalOHA’s Dyana Kelley and I have a long history of sharing ideas and supporting one another behind the scenes. Rivers & Rockies was, and is again, a sponsor of CalOHA’s Campground Solutions Summit West (CSSW) in Reno. Ergo, meetings and chats.
Florida’s Bobby Cornwell and I have been supportive shoulders for one another for what seems like forever, given our time in the industry.
Beyond that, sometimes what we all share in larger group texts is merely an appropriate emoji for a given day, wishing one another well, offering congratulations on a news story or sending supportive thoughts during a natural disaster.
WCM: How was business this past year for campgrounds and RV parks that are members of the coalition?
Arlington: The 2025 camping season delivered a complete mix. Between occupancy trends and net income reports, we have some parks that did very well in one or both areas, while others didn’t do as well. The spring weather was challenging, making statistics dismal to the point of scary! Fortunately, most of them rebounded, mostly or even completely, by autumn. Some even surpassed 2024’s numbers.
Mother Nature, the economy, political issues and international tourism were some of the factors that were simply out of the control of the owners and managers. Those who sensed changing conditions and shifted their marketing strategy early on seemed to fare the best.
WCM: Do you have a sense as to how your members are viewing 2026? Are they optimistic about business levels next year or do they have concerns?
Arlington: My most recent barometer readings are telling me that many are shifting their marketing plans, pulling inward a bit closer to home, while not giving up on the long-distance travelers. They remain optimistic, or at least hopeful. Some are still adding capital improvements, while others have pulled back a bit.
Given the 250th celebrations for our country, we believe the Americans themselves will be traveling in abundance.
