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CAMPSPOT CUSTOMER STORY
Learn from Greenbrier Campground, a Campspot award-winning park located in Gatlinburg, TN in operation for over 50 years.
In 2024, they received three Campspot Awards for Top Campgrounds in the United States, Top Midsize Campgrounds, and Top Campgrounds for Fishing.
To learn more about what’s led to their success, we sat down with general manager Courtney Belmont. Hear what she had to say below.
“When the current owners took over Greenbrier, the campground was in disrepair. There were less than a dozen sites with full hookups and the reputation of the campground was poor. In 2015, the current owners bought the property and closed it for a few months to renovate. We opened just a few months later with 99 full hookup sites and the campground totally overhauled.
“Greenbrier is unique in that we offer a full-service camping experience that feels like you’re in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The campgrounds within the actual park are very nice, but they’re limited as far as amenities, a lot of them don’t even have water. Here, we offer the feel of the national park, but we also have amenities like Wi-Fi, bath houses, and planned activities for kids.”
103
RV Sites
19
Tent Sites
2
Glamping Tents
17
Cabins
“We’re not a parking lot. A lot of campgrounds in our area are very cookie-cuter and paved with a swimming pool. They’re beautiful RV resorts, but they just feel more like a parking lot. That’s just not who we are and I think that’s what really sets us apart is that we have no asphalt. We don’t have fancy fire pits but we have gorgeous trees and we’re surrounded by the Pigeon River. We have a natural swimming area beach, and on top of our incredible setting, we’re only 6 miles from downtown Gatlinburg. You can be in the hustle and bustle of Gatlinburg in 10 minutes, or you can stay at the campground and not have to deal with any of that, so you’ve got the best of both worlds. It’s the perfect home base for a family who wants to get into the national park easily and also wants to enjoy some of the more commercial aspects of Gatlinburg. We’re less than a mile from the Greenbrier entrance to the national park, and eight miles to the main entrance.
“Recently we’ve been able to offer a new trolley service which is free to take our guests downtown. If you have someone in a motorhome here who doesn’t have a vehicle, it can be very difficult to get around. We don’t have taxis so having the trolley has been a huge benefit to use as well.”
16
Nearby Activities
4.7
Stars on Google Reviews
0.5
Miles to Great Smoky Mountains National Park
TN
State
“You have to be willing to do everything in the campground that needs to be done. Our staff never says, “this is not my job.” We all clean toilets. We all stay late. We all clean cabins. We all do landscaping. We all do everything that has to be done. I would never ask them to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. I’ve worked for a lot of people who wouldn’t do that. So I think that goes a long way as far as staff. I have a handful of staff that have been here for nine years, they’ve been with us since day one. We’re very proud of the campground and we take good care of it and I think it shows. It’s rare to find staff that truly care about what they’re doing.”
980
Days on Campspot
13%
Increase in Net Campsite Revenue from Year 1 to 2 on Campspot
Employees
21+
Park Features
“Regardless of how much someone is paying for their stay, whether it’s an RV site or tent camper, it all comes down to the guest being completely satisfied. Kindness goes a very long way and we’ve taught the staff that if it’s possible to make a situation right with somebody—make it right. Now, I don’t necessarily believe the saying of “the customer is always right.” Sometimes, they’re not and it’s not something fixable. But we do the best we can if it is.
“One of the things that we do here every week is send out a survey. When people check out we send them a quick survey to ask how their stay was. If someone needs to vent, this allows space for that. But 99% of the time it’s positive and if there is an issue that’s fixable, or something we need to change then we all get together every week and talk about that.”
“When it comes to ensuring guests get the attention they need when we have so many sites, this is where I use Campspot reporting on a daily basis. I love the reporting Campspot offers and we use it for check-ins and check-outs for the maintenance staff. Every day we have maybe 50 guests leaving and 60 arriving on the same day. It’s a lot to keep straight and the reporting has streamlined us to where we’re able to make sure that everything is ready for our check-in times.
“I also use the Guests in the Park report for our security at night. That way we know who should be in each site and if there’s someone in a site who shouldn’t be we’re able to address that.
“I also love the option of being able to send everyone in the campground a text if I have any kind of immediate announcement. I can get it out very quickly. We’ve also implemented a PA system for any emergency evacuations, because of the campground being surrounded by the river, it’s not unheard of to experience flooding. We also have two sets of campers who live here on property who work for the campground which has been very helpful in being able to monitor everything. When you’re in an office, you’re not always seeing everything on the grounds.
“The number one reason we switched to Campspot was because the online booking is so easy for the guest compared to other systems that we were using in the past.”
Courtney Belmont from Greenbrier Campground
“It’s a huge honor to have won a Campspot Award. I was shocked, honestly. I know we have a great park, but I know that there are a lot of other parks out there. It means a lot for us to even be considered alongside other very nice and large destinations. But we have an amazing place that’s very special. We have campers who have been staying here for 30 plus years. The people who come here understand how special it is and continue to come back year after year and spread the word.”
“The campground is literally on an island, you have to enter from a little bridge over the Pigeon River that flows from the Greenbrier section of the national park. So every exterior site of the campground is a stone’s throw from the river. The water itself is actually on the coveted list of outstanding natural resource waters, which was an honor bestowed upon this part of the stream in ‘98. The water is absolutely pristine and it’s stocked with three species of trout—rainbow, brown, and brook trout. We get stocked biweekly by the state from April until about August. The fishing is incredible.
“The national park itself is of course also a great place for fly fishing. If you want to get technical and do some fly fishing you can enter the park and enjoy that experience as well. We make it very easy for guests to enjoy their fishing experience by keeping our camp store well-stocked with flies and even rods. There’s a grocery store across the street that has live bait and believe it or not canned corn is the number one thing people use for trout, so we’re always well-stocked with plenty of canned corn.”
“Campspot just makes everything so easy.”
“I love the reporting. But the number one reason we switched to Campspot was because the online booking is so easy for the guest compared to other systems that we were using in the past. Before Campspot, we were getting absolutely clobbered and overwhelmed with daily phone calls because people couldn’t figure out how to use the online booking system. We were on the phone 24/7.
“Campspot has allowed us to have less office staff and more time to focus on things besides endless phone calls. Before Campspot, we were about a 70/30 split as far as phone call bookings vs online bookings. Now, we’re flipped at 60/40, 60% being online.”
Bookings Before Campspot
Bookings With Campspot
“Campspot just makes everything so easy. If somebody does have an issue it’s very simple to walk them through it. Before, we used a couple of systems that just weren’t built for campgrounds. It was a reservation system, but more geared for hotels. And camping is just different. Campers are very particular. At a hotel, a guest just wants a room with a king bed. But with RVers, they have a lot of questions and they want to ensure that they get the absolute best site that they can for their camper. With Campspot, they’re able to put in those parameters. That’s been huge for us, because as I said before, we’re not a cookie-cutter campground, we have a wide variety of sites. They’re all different sizes and Campspot has been amazing in being able to eliminate the times where somebody pulls in a 20ft site with a 40ft camper because there wasn’t a parameter to prevent that poor experience. It’s been a huge improvement for us.”
“It comes down to treating everyone—your guests, your staff—as family. That’s what we do here. We’re always willing and able to step into any position and ensure the guest is happy. As a staff, if you’re all on the same team working toward the same goal, you’re set.”
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