The 333 Rule for Campers

I was working with a new campground owner and looking over their rules that they were setting up in their point of sale system and their reservation system. And I ran into some trouble spots that I think you as a campground owner ought to know. And maybe you've heard of this, maybe you haven't. So I'm going to inform you on special rule that you need to know about that RVers follow. I'm Donna Bordeaux with campgroundaccounting.com we specialize in helping campground owners manage the profits of their campgrounds, save on taxes and overall have a great life. And one of the things that comes into play when we talk about this is making sure you're making a good guest experience. The RV or rule is the 333 rule. If you have not heard about this, I'm going to explain it. So it is to drive no more than three hours, to be off the road by three o' clock in the afternoon, and to drive no more than 300 miles. So that's the three through three rule. The campground that I'm talking about, I looked at and they had a check in time of 4pm that's pretty late in comparison to the industry and in comparison to that 3, 3, 3 rule, you're going to leave a lot of people kind of waiting or dilly dallying around to get there. And if you wait that late, you may have people coming in later than you anticipate if they hit traffic or something else because they're planning on the fact they can't get there till 4. So I recommended that they change those hours. I will tell you the standard that we see throughout the country, if I had to pick one time is one o' clock check in. Checkout time is usually at 11:00am so that gives you a two hour window to make sure those sites are cleaned up and tidied. And this isn't like a motel room. If you're talking about cabins, yes, 4 o' clock is probably pretty standard there. But we're talking about purely an RV site. You got to make sure the trash is clean, blow it off, empty out any embers in the fire pit if needed. So pretty quick tidy up and that makes sure that your guests can. And I will tell you, I did actually a little survey of my own was 11 o' clock checkout. I was at a campground where we were actually staying and this happened right after I was working with this client. So I went around at 11, actually I went around on my bike at 9 o', clock, 10 o' clock and 11 o' clock and by 9 o' clock probably 75% of the people had already hit the road. So people were not usually dilly dallying waiting until 11 to leave. So you're going to have actually a much bigger window than that. You know, there's always those few who are going to be the late goers, but that's going to be probably only about 10% of your guests who may be leaving at 11 o'. Clock. So keep that in mind when we're talking about that and you're starting to think well maybe that's too tight of a window. So I strongly encourage you to look at 11 o' clock checkout, 1 o' clock check in. We've also done some other videos about the early check in fees and late checkout fees so check those out too. Those kind of coordinate with that. Otherwise you're going to have some happy campers on your site. If you've got those rules set up for check in check out pretty well half by 11, check in by one or later, have a great day.