Donna reports on an ARVIC survey of 300 campground owners. The median park age is 40 years, with 77% over 20 years old and 36% over 50. Most campgrounds are family-owned operations that last for generations.
In our last segment of campground news, we checked out the profit indicators from the Recent survey from Arvic for the 2022 Trends and Insights report. Let's take a look at another piece of that survey and dive a little deeper. This one relates to how long your park has been in operation. So again, they asked about 300 campground owners. This question, the median which is the middle of this survey was 40 years. Now that is some really great longevity for the industry. Many businesses I think in average have about a 5 to 10 year span of life. Now there are obviously a lot of businesses who far exceed that, but there are also a lot of businesses who don't make out of their first year. So campground is a pretty good risk and a pretty good bet based on these numbers in the survey. Now they talk about the median being 40 years. Let's take a look. We hear a lot of things about growth in a lot of new parks and I expect these numbers will tip going forward. But right now only 6% were less than 5 years old. So that's a fairly small number, especially when you look at what's in the pipeline coming forward. Now on the opposite end of that trend, 50 plus years is 36%. So over a third of all campgrounds that responded in this survey have been open over 50 years. Now those are legacy properties probably passing along through families. And we're seeing a lot more trending towards the corporate side. But most of the older campgrounds are not going to be corporate. They're going to be more of the structure of a family owned business that's transferring hands from family owners, being, passing that down, even the 20 plus years. 77%, so really high numbers there. And if we dive just a little deeper, 70 years, man. I'll give you a round of applause for those folks in the 70 plus category. That's great. That's probably multiple generations of family in a campground. So campgrounds typically are long term, long lasting businesses. So if you're in the building phase, these are some great statistics to take a look at. They show that you're not going to shut off the lights and mow the grass and be done when you're gone. This campground that you're building will probably go on for years and years into the future. The other really great thing about our industry is that families are enjoying these campgrounds and being there, having these great times and building great memories and, and again, that is something our society really needs. So I applaud you each for your contribution to helping make the US a better place. If you have questions about this survey, I encourage you to go download the whole report. It's on the ARVIC website. You will need to be a member to download this, but if you're not already a member of arvic, I ask that you highly consider that. Also, start out with your state associations if your state participates, and you'll get membership to ARVIC national as well. I'm Donna Bordeaux with campgroundaccounting.com news. I'm Donna Bordeaux from campgroundaccounting.com please follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Make sure you check out our blog and our website from the link below. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when we post. To contact us me, email me@donnaampgroundaccounting.com.
