Every park owner will be used to the booking peaks and troughs that happen throughout the year.  Although most owners will have no problem filling their parks during the busy seasons, your occupancy will be heavily influenced by seasonality regardless of whether you are large park group or a small family caravan park.

Gaining bookings and high occupancy rates during your shoulder months are therefore key to ensuring your park’s longevity. However, it can be challenging for park owners to come up with new strategies to increase their occupancy when they have guests to look after and everyday park tasks to focus on.

Many parks turn to discounting as a simple tactic to fill holiday units and pitches, but reducing rates eats into your revenue – which is not a great strategy for smaller parks where their profit margins are being squeezed even tighter.

Instead of slashing prices, introducing a few tweaks to your revenue strategy can make a big difference to your bottom line. In this article David Lakins shares some ideas you can implement to boost your park revenues and increase your occupancy rates.

Occupancy Rate and other holiday park KPIs?

Before we start diving into the tactics, it is worth explaining what occupancy rate is and other key performance indicators to help you make informed decisions.

Occupancy rate is an important key performance indicator (KPI) for parks, along with average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR – a measure taken from the hotel sector).

  • Occupancy rate is the number of occupied units / pitches divided by the total accommodation available.

For example, if your park has 50 holiday units and 27 of them are occupied…

27 Occupied Units / 50 Total Units = Occupancy Rate of 54%

 

  • Average Daily Rate (ADR) is monthly income divided by number of occupied units / pitches. A simple measure that shows how income is derived daily per occupied unit.
  • Revenue per available room (RevPAR) is calculated by multiplying an accommodation’s ADR by its occupancy rate. Another crucial metric to watch closely – it assesses how effectively you are generating revenue from your available unit / pitch inventory
  • Average Customer Value is a good way to visualise the behaviour of your existing customer base.Highlights the value each one of your guests or owners brings to your park. Perhaps consider a monthly ACV target as values are likely to fluctuate throughout the season.
  • Average Spend per Visit – is based on the average spend guests make on-site.This is another good metric, particularly if you have up-sell or revenue opportunities on your park. You can even create average spend profiles for different accommodation types and compare them.

Why is occupancy rate such an important KPI?

Your occupancy rate is the percentage of your accommodation units / pitches that are occupied at a given time – a simple measure of how full you are.

Occupancy rate is one of the best measures you can use to judge the efficiency of your park. Achieving high occupancy rates are a solid indicator that you are doing a good job of attracting guests.

By monitoring your occupancy rate on a regular basis, you can quickly understand booking trends and changes in guest’s behaviour, which in turn helps you plan strategies and marketing campaigns to fill those slow periods.

Having sight of your occupancy data will help you with staff and resource planning, and you might also uncover a little nugget of insight you never knew existed before!

Most Park Management Systems (PMS’s) will have some kind of reporting to help you view your occupancy rates – whether that is a daily snapshot or comparing year on year rates. Having a clear focus on your occupancy rate KPI will help you quickly identify seasonal trends.

12 Ways to Boost your Holiday Park Occupancy Rates

1 – Optimise your website for mobile

You won’t be surprised at this first tip. Your website needs to be optimised for mobile. With over 60% of travellers now using their smartphones to research and book holidays, it is crucial you have a seamless online user experience and streamlined booking process.

Taking care to develop good online journeys will reap rewards – not only with your visitors, but also with Google, as your park brand will stand out in the search rankings.

2. Make it easy to book with you

Whichever way you take bookings – over the phone and / or online, you must make it easy for guests to book. If you are going to offer telephone bookings or bookings via social / WhatsApp then make sure they are resourced. If they are not available “out of hours” then make it clear on your booking pages.

Making the online booking journey easy is crucial to increasing occupancy rates.

So, a simple tip is to “walk the online booking journey” for yourself – and do it regularly. Does it work like other travel sites? What happens when you add in charges? And does a user get booted out of the process when they try and do something out of the ordinary?

The booking process is one of the crucial areas to get right for any park – big or small. If your booking journey isn’t up to scratch, then challenge your booking / PMS providers to make the online experience better.

If you use third party OTA providers like Pitchup or Hoseasons then make sure your key information is consistent across all those channels too. You may have a channel manager module in your PMS to allocate availability to them. Again, make sure your imagery is the best it can be, descriptions are up to date; and guests can find your park easily – and they can decide to book wherever they want.

2. Special offers and bundled packages

Let’s get the obvious tactic out of the way. Special offers are commonplace throughout most travel websites – free child places and low season discounts are just some of the thing’s travel businesses try.

However, enjoying a park holiday is more than just staying in a caravan or a tent, the guest experience is a critical factor that influences customer satisfaction, loyalty, and the overall success of a holiday destination.

Parks that prioritise creating positive and memorable experiences are more likely to thrive in the competitive marketplace. And this is where the smaller parks can steal an advantage. They have the flexibility to offer unique, memorable experiences and personalised stays e.g. glamping holidays with wine tasting packages, short stays with fine dining, spa days or alpaca trekking.

By understanding your occupancy rates throughout the year, you can develop special offers to create demand in those slower periods.

For instance:-

  • Encourage longer mid-week stays by providing discounted rates for guests booking three or more consecutive nights.
  • Provide complimentary accommodation upgrades or additional facilities for guests who book mid-week stays, adding extra value to their experience.
  • Offer remote workers an alternative “work from home” package with a change of scene on your beautiful park.
  • Appeal to relaxation seekers by offering mid-week spa packages or wellness retreats at discounted rates.

3. Unlocking revenue with upselling and cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling are tow tactics used in sales to maximise revenue by encouraging customers to purchase additional products or services.

  • Upselling involves persuading a customer to buy a more expensive version of your product – you might highlight the additional features and benefits.
  • Cross-selling, on the other hand involves showing the customer other complimentary products or services they might be interested in.

Both strategies are designed to increase the overall value of a customer transaction while providing them with a better guest experience.

However, to implement them successfully you need to have a good understanding of your customers and be able to communicate with them effectively to showcase the added value you are offering.

If you can become proficient in upselling and cross-selling, you can open up new revenue streams.

As a park there must be plenty of things you currently offer that you could turn into paid additional revenue opportunities.

  • Early check-in or late check-out are two obvious ones.
  • Create exclusive hampers that include items the guests get to choose from a list of options.
  • Inform them of leisure activities such as hiring bikes, leisure facilities, gym, sauna etc.
  • Advertise your partnerships with local eateries or tour guides and sell packages to guests.
  • Give guests something to go home with – such as local art or crafts which you display around your units / park.

Make sure that your upgrade options are clearly displayed on your website, and any associated costs are legible.

And why not give guests the opportunity to choose a random upgrade during the booking process. Just make sure you keep your guests fully informed about your upsells and special packages – doing this before they arrive or even offering an upsell whilst they are on-park could help you unlock some additional revenue streams.

4. Offer upgrades pre-arrival

Offering an upgrade typically involve offering guests the option to move from their originally booked accommodation to a higher-tier room with additional features, facilities, or a more desirable location within an establishment.

In most circumstances, upgrades are usually offered by reception staff during check-in. However, there is a prime opportunity before your guests arrive on park to present your upgrade packages.

Booking confirmation and pre-arrival emails are the perfect mechanism to offer upgrades. Your guests are excited about going on holiday so upgrade offers in a pre-arrival email is a great reminder of the added value they could be enjoying.

5. Offer late check-out or early check-in

Many parks will operate a typical check-in time of 4pm and check out by 10am the next day. The timings are clearly designed to help the parks managed their changeovers.

However, more and more guests are asking for the flexibility to arrive early or to leave late – and they are happy to pay for it!

It is easy to underestimate the value of an early check-in and late check-out – the longer your guest occupies a room, the more possibilities you have to boost the average daily spend when they are on park.

What’s more, you might also be able to increase your occupancy rate by offering those guests that want to arrive early or stay late an additional night.

6. Loyalty programs and encouraging repeat visitors

Developing a loyalty program (even a simple one) is a great opportunity for any park to connect with their existing customers and encourage repeat bookings. As they say, “it is easy to sell again to those that you have already sold to” – so offering some form of additional value to previous guests is a no-brainer.

The best time to start developing a loyalty program or encourage repeat bookings is when guests are already on your park – and in particular, during the busier periods – when you have a captive audience.

  • Offer points or reward guests for staying with you multiple times
  • Be more generous with your loyalty offers during off-peak
  • Give guests a personalised offer they can’t get anywhere else
  • Give out VIP passes to local attractions – Skelfwith Fold’s Advantage Club is a great example
  • Take this a stage further and only make them available to download from your park app when they are on-site – see Lady’s Mile Activity Passport

Start collecting guest data for your loyalty scheme during your busy periods. Create email lists, look at your occupancy trends, which accommodation type could be a potential target for a low-season promotion.

Drip feed your guests with promotions and maybe try remarketing on your website. Displaying an offer “little and often” is a create tactic.

7. Add in-demand facilities

I am sure you see lots of different requests coming through from guests before and during their stay – what time does the pool open, can we park next to our caravan?

By listening carefully to their questions, you can often uncover ways to increase demand and boost occupancy. In many hotels you will find, a kettle and basic refreshments, bath robes and complimentary slippers.

However, if you notice an increase in guests asking for a particular facility or service on your park, then why not consider adding them to your offering.

  • The top FAQs looked at on our holidaymaker app are related to WiFi, linen and check-in times – so there are three areas where you could work up specific offers.
  • Parents will always want to occupy their kids as they have settled in to their new holiday caravan. Why not offer a complimentary kids pack to keep the little ones happy whilst the parents unpack.
  • Many guests see their dogs as just part of the family, and there is no way a dog is going to be left behind when they go on holiday. It is well worth considering any costs you charge are competing with the cost of boarding kennels or the hassle of arranging a dog-sitter!

8. Food and Beverage opportunities

If you offer food and beverage on your park – even if it is a single self-service coffee or drinks machine – you have lots of potential for generating revenue – particularly through upselling.

In your park restaurant or bar, you can start with a very simple offers, like deals on set menus or add-ons to items e.g. add cheese to your fries or double up on your soft drinks.

Mobile ordering and payment technology have revolutionised the way guests can now buy their food. And parks can see impressive increases in revenue by introducing this technology.

Guests can order and pay at their table, there is no waiting around at the end of a sitting to pay the bill, they can even split the bill if they need to. Many food outlets report an increase in individual order size just by moving to a digital menu.

9. Try implementing Dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing is already used extensively throughout the airline and hotel sector. The theory is simple, you have a flexible set of prices that fluctuate based on demand.

So, for instance in peak seasons when you have limited availability your holiday rates would increase and when you are quieter you offer a better deal and more value to win over bookings.

Many PMSs in the park market will offer a dynamic pricing module and once set up, their automation will take care of your pricing strategy. It will continuously monitor your occupancy rate and interest online and optimise your rates accordingly.

10. Leveraging events in your area

Guests will often book their holidays or short stays around special events that are happening near your park – they might be taking part in a local festival, food, sport, art, or music related – the key thing is they will all need a place to stay.

The sooner you can collate a local calendar of events the better. Then you can start to think about the types of guests that are likely to be visiting and how you can accommodate them.

Can you put together specific packages and promotions that appeal to those guest types?

e.g. if there is a local music or cultural festival, can you offer a glamping experience with complimentary welcome packs or food options?

11. Analyse your occupancy rates and driving direct bookings

How and when you sell your holiday accommodation will have a massive impact on your profitability. Try and make the most of the data that you already have within your PMS and booking system.

Identify your top performing accommodation units, which pitches make you the most money? Keeping a hand on the occupancy rates across your park will help you make decisions on where you might invest (or cut back) next.

If you do use OTA and other channels to promote your park, don’t forget to work on your direct booking strategy. Any bookings that come directly to you are commission-free and will obviously help you increase your overall profitability.

Setting a simple target of reducing your OTA allocation by 2-3% could be the catalyst for you to focus on those repeat / direct bookings and make a considerable difference to your bottom line.

12. Do one thing at a time

Whilst there are lots of things in this article to get you excited and help you increase your occupancy rates in your holiday park, you don’t need to do them all at once.

In the early stages, focus on the things that will be the easiest to implement. That might mean looking closely at the way you manage OTA bookings. Are there ways in which you can convert those guests into direct bookings the next time they stay with you?

A take-home pack of goodies or a hand-written thank you card are a lovely reminder to encourage guests to rebook directly with you.

Don’t forget to take a deeper dive into your booking data, segment your guests and find opportunities for creating personalised stays.

Original article in BH&HPA Journal – January 2024.