News Blip: KOA Quality AND Quantity
RVBusiness Reports On Success Seen From The Largest System Of Privately Held Campgrounds & Its Emphasis On Marketing Over The Past Few Years
Last month, Kampgrounds of America Inc.’s (KOA), the largest system of private campgrounds in the U.S. and Canada, once again held the organization’s International Convention Nov. 15-18 in Phoenix, Arizona. President and CEO Pat Hittmeier and COO Toby O’Rourke paused were interviewed by Woodall's Sherman Goldenberg, where they were able to shed some light on the impressive year-end report Montana-based KOA issued during the gathering. Fully 90% of KOA’s parks, they told some 600 attendees, posted gains in 2017.
Here’s a brief look at that conversation conducted at the Phoenix Convention Center with Hittmeier and O’Rourke, whose 55-year-old company currently oversees a system of about 500 U.S. and Canadian parks, 30 of them company owned.
WCM: Everything appears to be coming up roses for KOA right now, judging by the presentations we’ve just observed, just as it has for much of the RV park and campground sector and the RV industry at large. Is that your take?
Hittmeier: Yes. It is very good. I mean it’s six years of continuing growth and as (Thor Industries Inc. President and CEO) Bob Martin pointed out in his video during the convention, we don’t see an end to it. There’s a lot of momentum and I characterize that momentum as meaning a lot of energy associated with the progress that we’ve made as a company and as a brand and our campgrounds, and then the overall business climate we’re in.
Park operators just have to take advantage of it and grow with it. And I think it bodes well for a fantastic future for our campgrounds, the RV industry, outdoor hospitality, all of those things. And it’s good for society as well.
O’Rourke: It’s not just the increase of campers coming in. It’s also the resurgence of interest in the outdoors, a trend that’s attracting the attention of large investment companies. People are seeing the value in campgrounds and are investing in existing parks and building new parks – inside and outside of KOA – more than we’ve ever seen before. So, there’s just a lot of interest in the general marketplace about camping. People see it as a very profitable venture.
WCM: Another takeaway from your on-stage presentations was the emphasis that KOA’s been placing on marketing in general across the board in recent years.
O’Rourke: Yes, we shifted our marketing strategy six, seven years ago toward what we call broad-based awareness tactics. We introduced TV, digital advertising for the first time, upped the amount of money we invest in research, and that’s all been driving the increases in our awareness. As a result, you’re seeing online reservations tick up, more campers coming in, more loyalty. I think the transition in our marketing has probably been the biggest fundamental change at KOA in the past few years for sure.
Hittmeier: While we’ve done a fantastic job of focusing dollars where they need to be spent, what I find most intriguing is that with six consecutive years of growth, not only did the registration revenues and the profitability of our campgrounds grow, but our ad fund is so much bigger than it was five years ago. We have a lot more money to spend on marketing than we did even five years ago. So we’re able to do so much more and, at the same time, be very efficient on how we deploy it. And so, it’s a cumulative effect and it’s quite dramatic and I think that’s a real key point of why our success is going to continue.
Read the full interview and article at RVBusiness.
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