Is free-camping killing caravan parks?

I’d love to hear everyones opinion on whether free-camping is having a bad effect on caravan parks in Australia.

Are parks pricing themselves out of the market?

Should there be a new payment model for parks to accomodate self contained RV’s?

Do you free-camp or use van parks? Why?

Should more councils be providing free-camps and ammenities to attract RVers?

Tell me your thoughts!

Cheers,
Mark

Nope – we use both depending on a lot of things – not just $$$.

They both a place in any adventurer’s travels…

Cheers,
Doug

Mark,
As I didn’t get a reply to the email with Word attachment, that I sent weeks ago, I thought you must have found greener pastures. I’ll answer this query of yours, when you answer my email.
glanyard

Hi Markk.

If you stay in caravan parks the park get the biggest slice of the pie at $25 to $35 a night but if you use free camp sites the town gets the biggest slice of the pie i would rather free camp as i did in wagga from the op-shop to the supermarkets i would’ve spent over $500.00 whilst i was there.

Karen,Ron and the Girls.

Just coasting along.

Mark, it appears for some time that vans are being designed to be self sufficient. Toilets, showers, washing machines, solar energy powered or at least 12V fittings throughout. For the segment of the caravanning population that chooses to go this way then often parks are redundant.

But to the holiday maker with kids…a different story…investing in all this stuff would be ridiculous for the return they would get.

Parks whining about the self sufficient traveller not choosing to use their often high priced service will NOT bring this segment back to them and it is time they worked on their business model. And if the decision is to sell to developers or cut down the van sites and put on-site cabins in instead then it is US that must stop whining….

Me, I will use quiet parks with limited facilities for $20 – $25 a night in preference to "Free" camping…these days I don’t even look at the chain or affiliated parks as I know they won’t fit in with my needs and will be higher priced than I wish to pay.

Quick and simple answer is no, it is not killing caravan parks. There are two different markets. It is no different to the takeaway food outlet in town crying that the grocery store is killing their business.

Apart from coastal resorts, Australians have been going out ‘camping’ for generations, pre-dating the advent of caravan parks in almost every town.

These days people are investing big dollars for self sufficient rigs so they can do so in luxury and cleanly. Although ours is only a fairly basic older self sufficient caravan, it would have been cheaper to holiday in motels and cabins than purchase our rig, but we do not want to holiday in towns. My sister and brother in law think the same, hence have cheaper holidays overseas in a variety of different and exotic places than we have touring Australia.

We will use a caravan park about once a week, preferably in a small rural town and even better if a serviced community run option designed to attract visitors into their town and gain patronage for their businesses. I will go out of my way to support communities and small towns like these and will promote the ones i find. We can go independently long term as we can get water when re-fuelling and have more than adequate power for all our needs.

Mark, if you want any more, i can be VERY outspoken on this topic. Just ask

What Crazyhorse said about chain and affiliated parks. I still don’t mind the odd free camp
Greg & Sue

Thanks for your replies everyone.
I know this is a topic that can get people fired up a bit, especially park owners who feel they are losing business.
It seems to me that the RVing lifestyle is evolving and fragmenting into different, more defined segments, perhaps parks need to consider this more?
Obviously many councils realise the benefit of providing good free camps for boosting spending in their towns and from all accounts most free-campers would just move on to the next camp rather than stay at a caravan park if they didnt want to.
So it seems like the idea that they are losing business as a direct result of free-camping might be a bit exagerrated, but surely is has some impact?
I will be talking to some caravan park businesses, both individual and the big chain ones, over the coming weeks to see how that are reacting to the changing market.
So I will let you know what they say.
Has anyone come across a case of a caravan park changing or adapting its offerings to entice self contained Rvers?
Or have you been to a town where the caravan park and free-camp seem to be in competition?
Please keep the comments coming I’m interested to here all sides of the story.

Cheers,
Mark

Caravan park greed is killing the parks. The costs for a stay in out of holiday times needs to be more restrained. They often charge only a few dollars less than in peak times, which on the coast are exorbitant. We dont free camp and often prefer to stay in an ensuite site for our convenience and really find that the greedier the park, the shorter time we will stay. When a park offers three nights for the price of two type deals, we will stay for the longer time and often will stay longer than the deal, so it is for their own benefit to make these offers. We have noticed that these deals are offered by smaller parks on their websites and we research each area very carefully before arriving in town.
For us, we want to use the power and safety of the park, but many of the other "extras’ are a total waste. Just dont see too many grey nomads riding go-karts or on those jumping pillows!
Deborah

We are in Loxton tonight, Theile’s sandbar campground is closed due to the higher level of the river we called in to the visitor info centre and were given 2 other options for freecamping, the town will benefit for the next 2 days, if I had been directed to a CP they would have had money tonight and I would have left town tomorrow without spending anymore.
Frank