In some areas of my life I consider myself to be “old school” by today’s standards. I get up at 4 a.m., put on the coffee pot and then proceed up my driveway to retrieve my morning newspaper which arrives about the same time. This time, however, the newspaper wasn’t there! My immediate solution: I didn’t even hesitate to power up my laptop to access the newspaper online.
Already
12 years into the twenty first century, things sure have changed. Now, no
matter where I’m at, I can read my daily local newspaper online and when I
travel I don’t have to worry about all those newspapers piled up that I wanted
to read but could never find the time. Old news is just that, old news.
I
hate to admit, but in many ways while I was in business I fought technology
kicking and screaming. I always wanted my business to be “personable” and felt like
technology was encroaching on that. After some real soul searching however, I finally
realized that my lack of embracement for technology was due to my resistance to
change. I don’t think I am unlike many people, we are uncomfortable with change.
The problem though was my customer had changed and I’m sure I wasn’t setting
the pace, or even catching up at times with their needs.
When
I finally got honest with myself, I realized that I was intimidated by all the
new technology. That has changed and I can explain it something like this: It’s
a lot like driving a car. You don’t have to know all the workings of an
internal combustion engine to drive a car. You have to learn the rules of the
road, make sure there is fuel in the tank, turn the key on, put it in gear and
away you go. Of course brakes are important as well. Think about when you learned
to drive compared to now and all the things that have just become second nature
to you. Embracing technology works the same way.
To
give you a few examples of how my perspective has changed, I had professional
people design my website, just like it’s better to have a real mechanic work on
my vehicle. That’s not to say I can’t do a few things myself, some things are
better left to professionals. Not updating your website periodically is like
cleaning your restrooms and thinking you don’t have to do that again until next
year.
Another
example of how my technology perspective has evolved is my support for online
reservations. I never wanted to do a reservation system at my park, I wanted to
take each reservation by phone and make it personal. Times have changed. Example:
I had to go out of town and wanted to book a room. I got online and my first
choice hotel didn’t take online reservations. I could have called them but
instead went to the next location and was able to book online and in short order
I had my confirmation number. It was quick & efficient. It probably doesn’t
take many potential guests to make a big difference to your bottom line.
In
an article “The Evolution of Online
Travel,” Feb. 21, 2012, by Lauren Hockenson
states, “this year, there will be 117.6 million online travel researchers in the
U.S. — that’s 61 percent of America’s users. Of these, 98.3 million actually
will book online.” While not industry specific for the RV Park & Campground
industry, it tells me there is some real potential for our industry.
I
was at a meeting recently and relaying a joke about this new all-inclusive
website that you could go to solve all your social media needs called “You Twit
Face” (referencing You Tube, Twitter & Facebook). It was a joke but
somebody started writing it down.
Okay,
social media is not as simple as that but it grieves me when I hear someone
say, “I don’t have the time!” What are you saying? You don’t have time for your
business? Look, times have changed whether we like it or not and the way our customers
communicate have changed as well. The retired segment of our customer base took
to the internet like a duck to water but social media is a staple of the next
generations.
Performance
monitoring service, Pingdom, has done another one of its mammoth social media
studies that shows the average ages of social media users and it
holds no surprises … more than half are between 25 and 44 years old, with only 5
percent under 17 and only 1 percent over 65. The absolute average across all
social networks is 36.9 years old.
Find
a way to develop a presence. There are numerous tools and strategies out there,
including one that arvc provides. We launched the new GoCampingAmerica website
in August and it is very user friendly for consumers. More importantly, it’s
very easy for you to update your profile in real time, add photos and connect
your social media. There are even tutorials available to assist you through the
process. If you have questions please contact Jake Poterbin at jpoterbin@arvc.org.
I
believe each of you will do one of two things. You will either find a reason or
make up an excuse why you are not going to embrace technology or you will
strive to utilize the many opportunities available to you and mold and shape them
to fit your successful business plan. I have visited thousands of parks and
never saw two that were exactly alike. That’s the beauty of technology and the
web: it’s adaptable to a park’s character, showing consumers the character of
the park and making the experience surprisingly personable.
