Having 10 years in the lodging business and having had some of my competition being run by managers, I can second that point. Running a small business is a 24/7 business and I never saw a manager that was willing to give that commitment. They tend to think of it as a job (which it is) rather than a commitment. I have seen many times when we were full, attempt to send customers to the manager who stated they were full when if fact they were not. Managers tend to think of extra business as extra work rather than extra income. At the very least, make the manager's income heavily based on results rather than on a salary. These managers that I was aware of, seemed to be very nice and very energetic, but after a while, their commitment wained. I believe this is the norm, not the exception. If you really want to get into this business, I would suggest your wait until you are ready to live there and manage the business yourelf or at the very least have a daily onsite presence at the park. You also have the issue of cash. When people are confronted daily with accepting cash, the temptation to put it in their pocket gets bigger and bigger and many otherwise good folks fall to that temptation. Any deal out there can be found again. The road to problems is paved with one in a life time deals. They can be found again. Good Luck.
Since this discussion is still going on, please accept my 2 cents worth: We are one of those parks who dropped our KOA affilliation 10 years ago. We are not sorry. We became a Good Sam Park and saw our business increase. We purchased an existing KOA, went to their "training" classes, etc. One of things we did not like as a KOA was having to participate in programs they sponsored. We were never asked for our input as a franchisees. Most of the time, the $$ came out of our pocket for the promotions. I recall the Passport promotion: campers collected stamps for stays at other KOAs then cashed them in for free nights. We were usually at the cashing in end and were giving out 3 to 4 nights at a time without any reimbursement from KOA. Also, when you sold a KOA card, you got to keep half. With Good Sam, you keep the whole amount and GS picks up the tab on the free night the camper gets when he joins GS. (They send in the certificate they get when they get their new membership card in the mail from GS.) That, and a host of other things - the always in stock items that never sold (because we were 2 blocks from a Walmart), the 10% paid on all registrations (sometimes 10% was all the profit you made so no $$ were left over for keeping the park updated), having to have tent sites (we have since gotten rid of them). You have to take into consideration the area, the fees charged by other campgrounds, and whether you are giving the customer the value you feel the higher rate is worth. Be sure that the bottom line on a KOA is worth it. You can improve non-KOA parks the way you want. As a KOA, you have to use their guidelines - so are you really in charge of your park? Think about it. The former president of KOA once said something to this order, "The only time a campground owner makes money is when he has sold his park." Not always the case, but some years have been pretty lean. Thank goodness we have a good rapport with out local bank. They have given us loans to do improvements and large item expenses that as a KOA we could never do because of the 10% off the top. Thanks for listening. Good luck with your endevours.
QUOTE(mpj @ Jun 15 2010, 11:58 AM) [snapback]22545[/snapback] Since this discussion is still going on, please accept my 2 cents worth: We are one of those parks who dropped our KOA affilliation 10 years ago. We are not sorry. We became a Good Sam Park and saw our business increase. We purchased an existing KOA, went to their "training" classes, etc. One of things we did not like as a KOA was having to participate in programs they sponsored. We were never asked for our input as a franchisees. Most of the time, the $$ came out of our pocket for the promotions. I recall the Passport promotion: campers collected stamps for stays at other KOAs then cashed them in for free nights. We were usually at the cashing in end and were giving out 3 to 4 nights at a time without any reimbursement from KOA. Also, when you sold a KOA card, you got to keep half. With Good Sam, you keep the whole amount and GS picks up the tab on the free night the camper gets when he joins GS. (They send in the certificate they get when they get their new membership card in the mail from GS.) That, and a host of other things - the always in stock items that never sold (because we were 2 blocks from a Walmart), the 10% paid on all registrations (sometimes 10% was all the profit you made so no $$ were left over for keeping the park updated), having to have tent sites (we have since gotten rid of them). You have to take into consideration the area, the fees charged by other campgrounds, and whether you are giving the customer the value you feel the higher rate is worth. Be sure that the bottom line on a KOA is worth it. You can improve non-KOA parks the way you want. As a KOA, you have to use their guidelines - so are you really in charge of your park? Think about it. The former president of KOA once said something to this order, "The only time a campground owner makes money is when he has sold his park." Not always the case, but some years have been pretty lean. Thank goodness we have a good rapport with out local bank. They have given us loans to do improvements and large item expenses that as a KOA we could never do because of the 10% off the top. Thanks for listening. Good luck with your endevours. Hi all, this is our first post and we are very pleased to have found you guys, we have been looking at joining KOA and have to say that from what we have seen and been told they offer nothing that a well run family business with good marketing & internet skills could not achieve, we have just bought a park on Vancouver Island and have been looking at having someones warm arms wrapped around us to guide us threw the Camping world, But as we have loads of experience of good old customer service I reckon we can pull the whole thing together without sending 10% down the road every week, OK it might take a year or two to have it looking like the finished article but when its done the understanding of the business and its customers will be priceless.
