Clockwise, from bottom left, Scott Bahr, Bob Zagami and John DiPietro.
The “2020 North American Camping Report,” Kampgrounds Of America’s (KOA) annual survey of camping trends that normally is released in mid-May, will be published a few weeks later this year. The reason for the delay is researchers have gone back to respondents and sought their answers to questions regarding the pandemic crisis.
And Scott Bahr, of Cairn Consulting Group, the group behind the annual report, promised the results of the addended survey will be very much appreciated by the RV and campground industries.
Without going into detail — that privilege is reserved for when KOA releases the report — Bahr said the update dives into topics such as whether the coronavirus is motivating people to go camping instead of vacationing overseas, on cruise ships or otherwise
“All that is going to come out in pretty good detail. It’s going to be really interesting,” said Bahr, speaking on the “RVing in New England” Facebook Live show, the twice-weekly program hosted by Bob Zagami and John DiPietro of the New England RV Dealers Association (NERVDA).
Bahr pointed out that, even before the pandemic, motivating factors already cited by RVers — a sanitary way to see the country — take on even greater emphasis in the updated survey. In addition, Americans’ desire to take a road trip is also addressed in the upcoming report, he added.
“The industry has a huge opportunity to jump on this stuff; they’d be foolish not to,” Bahr said.
Among the other previews of what the 2020 report will reveal, Bahr said, in general, more people are camping, and they are camping more frequently.
In addition, Bahr said one of the groups adding to the growing number of campers is what he calls “lapsed campers” — especially in light of the coronavirus.
“Some of them are coming back, and that’s driving the growth,” he said. “All I can say right now is the new and lapsed campers are going to be bigger.”
Also, the segment known as family campers continues to grow, but the group is now trending younger.
“The oldest Millennials will be turning 40 pretty quickly. They started camping a few years ago, and now they have kids,” Bahr said.
He noted that 35% of American households have children, but among households who go camping that figure climbs to 52%.
In addition, Bahr revealed that there was a 72% increase in campers who said they take at least three trips each year. Also, there was a 24% increase among Millennial campers.
