- 
Outdoor Hospitality: Coming of Age in the Era of Technology
by Daniel Hoopes
Senior Director, Strategic Development
Coast to Coast Resorts
If you think technology words are made up just to sound interesting, and Wi-Fi is a hot new radio station, you are in for a surprise. In the hospitality industry, it’s a whole lot more than being able to take pictures with your cell phone, send your favorite jokes by PDA or stay in touch anywhere in the world whether you want to or not. It’s about bringing the last frontier of the travel industry--- outdoor hospitality --- into the modern age to make maximum use of the hottest commodity – time. It’s about enabling RV’ers and campers to 1) exercise more control over their own travel plans, 2) make the best use of their time, and 3) enjoy the security of having confirmed, documented reservations throughout their trip. RV’ers and campers may still be Happy Wanderers, but they’re also very likely to be enabled users of PC’s, with high expectations of making their travel plans through the Internet. High speed access in travelers’ homes has encouraged greater Internet use, and since more “boomers” who are avid computer users are buying RV’s in record numbers, it’s only logical they would prefer to also conduct their RV travel business online. A few enlightened outdoor hospitality companies understand this. Coast to Coast Resorts (an Affinity Group company) is one of them.
To draw an analogy, consider the recent past when Travelocity and Expedia were radical concepts. Who would dare to make his own airline reservations, on a computer no less? Now it’s done hundreds of thousands of times daily, by average humans, with great ease and confidence. Substitute the words “outdoor hospitality” reservations for airline or hotel reservations and you’ll instantly recognize an industry ready to leap into today. Sad to say, but that’s where it’s been, with campground and park reservations the last holdouts in the march to utilize technology to make vacation planning easier, quicker and all-around more efficient for all parties in the transaction.
Until recently, the accepted standard for making RV reservations at campgrounds and parks was to either just take a chance and drop in, call the park (or the headquarters of multiple-park companies) directly, or call the reservation center of the reciprocal use organization to which you belong. You’d then have to wait to receive paper confirmation in the mail, possibly buy some vouchers and suffer through a cumbersome manual process. Readers who are not engaged in the outdoor hospitality industry no doubt see this archaic system for what it is: an inefficient, cost-provoking, time-consuming waste of resources. More likely, they will see the potential for improvement and the opportunity to positively influence an entire industry ripe for change. That is precisely what Dan Hoopes, Senior Director Strategic Development at Coast to Coast Resorts, realized when he sparked the virtual campfire for the thousands of Coast to Coast Resorts members.
On January 1, 2004, Coast to Coast Resorts launched Tripsetter, the outdoor hospitality industry’s first fully automated, online central reservation system. Developed in conjunction with automation industry leader, DigitalRez, a framework was created to address these questions:
How can we make it easier for members to make reservations and pay for their stays?
How can we help our campresorts function more efficiently, effectively, and profitably?
How can we provide more value for everyone we touch in the course of doing business?
How do we integrate a new system into processes and functions already in use by AGI, the parent of Coast to Coast?
Clear validation of Tripsetter as the answer to these questions is indicated by the facts that in the first five months after launch.
Coast to Coast members purchased more than a million Trip Points (the currency used in conjunction with Tripsetter)
58% of reservations were made online – a huge success indicator – and going up every month
89,000 nights were “hosted” at campresorts
Over $750,000 was paid to campresorts
This trend of measurable success continues to be borne out in recent system reports, and sets the stage to move into Phase 2 and Phase 3 enhancements. Early in 2005, IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) will be implemented and resorts will be able to totally control their own inventory allocations online 24/7.
If you are outside the outdoor hospitality industry, this may sound extraordinarily basic to you because you’ve enjoyed the benefits of automation for years. For outdoor hospitality industry professionals, though, it’s literally a fine new day. Having a central reservation system (such as the one Coast to Coast Resorts operates) interfaced with a property management system is without question the most efficient way to maintain inventory controls and maximize income/revenue. The added benefits of being able to forecast travelers’ reservations, manage yield accordingly as well as relieve the phone and operational stresses at the property level are just icing on the automation cake. Heightened customer satisfaction created by giving the end users a system which provides ease of booking, immediate and constant access to information and recognizes that their time is valuable leads to repeat business, in turn leading to increased revenue. No bad news here!