CAMPSPOT CUSTOMER STORY
Martens Resort, a Campspot award-winning park located in Lac La Hache, British Columbia is spread over 15 acres and 1,100 feet of beautiful shoreline.
To learn how Martens Resort sets themselves apart and works to maximize earning potential we sat down with owner Jeff Martens. Hear what he had to say below.
“Everything started from a personal journey. We had a deep desire to connect with nature. We had that typical story of climbing the corporate ladder, life was very busy, life was about money, then life happened and we needed to figure out where to go on that fork.
“We knew nothing about campgrounds and RV parks. It wasn’t in our wheelhouse, it wasn’t how we vacationed. It took us a couple of years to know the difference between a black tank and a gray tank. And while cabins were in our wheelhouse, tents and RVs certainly were not.”
30
RV Sites
10
Tent Sites
Lodging Sites
35
Pet-Friendly Sites
“It took quite a bit of time for us to figure out what campgrounds were really about and we saw that they can be very different and just based on traveling we found the vast majority of them to be on highways that basically present as parking lots. That wasn’t attractive to us. We didn’t want to be in that segment of the market. We wanted to be in the experiential side of the market where it was nature, not frills. We didn’t want people to come here because we have a bouncy castle—we wanted it to be about connection to the earth. And so we came up here because it was far from the noise of traffic. It was enough of a trip from the major city centers, but not so far away that someone might not make the trek. The property we’re on is so beautiful. It has the perfect south exposure to the lake, its low bank waterfront. It’s the perfect shape along the water.
“Our unique selling point is really where we are. It’s the parcel of land. It’s that feeling that you get when you first arrive and you see the lake from the top of the driveway and the pristine nature.”
Jeff Martens, Owner
7
Nearby Activities
4.9
Stars on Google Reviews
0.0
Miles to Timothy Lake
BC
Province
“July and August are the months where we typically get your 5 to 7 night bookings and it’s heavy on repeat clientele. They’ve got their spot, and they don’t want to lose it. There’s such demand because everyone has time during those months. We’re a May through October campground. Which means May, June, September, October—those are our opportunities and our challenges and where it changes from people taking a vacation to more a mix of people needing a hotel room, people taking vacations, and seniors beating the crowds.”
960
Days on Campspot
140%
Increase in Net Campsite Revenue from Year 1 to 2 on Campspot
2
Employees
15+
Park Features
“Recently we’ve moved into becoming a wedding venue. We find that it’s been a great opportunity to fill the shoulder season up. This year, we’ve seen tremendous growth. Every weekend in September, we’re booked with weddings.”
“The campground purchased an RV, which we rent out as a pseudo cabin. We took that RV and we traveled through the US in our off season to experience life from the RV standpoint. It was so helpful. We didn’t know what we didn’t know—and we didn’t know a lot! So as we went from campground to campground, we really were able to see it from the standpoint of an RVer. One example of a takeaway for us was that while it’s nice to be in nature, every site needs to be level, where you just pull through and park. When we came home, we started the process of leveling out all of our sites after realizing how important it was.
“Another thing we observed was that a lot of the parks we stayed at were dirty and there weren’t enough people picking trash up. I think that starts in the camp store. You have to be careful with what types of items you sell. Are you selling sunflower seeds? Gum? We’ve started to really consider the packaging and the products more because we know we’re going to see the garbage around. We want to have very convenient places to put the garbage, but also be very mindful of what we’re bringing into the park. We don’t want to bring something in that’s going to become a mess and a challenge.”
“The risk to our July and August business is largely to do with cancellations. We tend to book July and August about one year in advance. While it’s easy for us to book July and August, we struggle to fill last-minute cancellations that arise.
“Campspot allows us to communicate our cancellation policy up front with all of our campers. This gives us the opportunity to recommend our campers purchase travel insurance so they are protected during times when the campgrounds cancellation policy will not support their needs. This level of clear, upfront communication helps prevent campers from being frustrated with our policies if they find themselves in a situation where they need to cancel their reservation but are not eligible for a refund.
“For our location, July and August come with risk of forest fires and with fires comes negative media coverage. Our campers often travel 4+ hours to and camp with us and when the news puts forest fires on repeat, campers often assume the entire province is burning, even though we don’t have an active fire within 200 kilometers of the campground. A clear cancellation policy can explain the difference between how our campground’s cancellation policy treats “smoke in the air” vs. “flames on the ground.” Clearly articulating our cancellation policy has been critical in treating our campers fairly and protecting the campground against losses.
“Campspot has really helped in allowing us to see all of our bookings on a calendar. The rules allow us to optimize the grid and we’re inching closer and closer to eliminating 1 and 2 night gaps between bookings in our high season which has a tremendous impact on our bottom line.
“The campground industry has relied on a two-month season for too long and we need to expand that and get the shoulder seasons up to 80 to 90% occupancy. We have seen a year-over-year increase in occupancy of 100% in the month of June alone which has been greatly helped by the tools in Campspot’s suite. In fact, it is the tools available to us in Campspot that we will be relying on to help us achieve our goals to build the shoulder season—including rule setting, channel integrations, and easy camper data and communications.”
“With pen and paper it’s just not feasible. We definitely couldn’t manage the campground without Campspot. We really highly value this relationship.”
“We don’t have a lot of time to do advertising. My wife manages our social media, and I maintain our website. When Campspot takes the initiative to promote parks, we jump all over it because we definitely get some reach out of that. Our 2023 Campspot Award remains on the front of our website as something we can be proud of and build our reputation based on a third party.”
“The time savings of being able to capture the sale in Campspot and have that entered is tremendous. As we grow, it’s fantastic, but it’s more and more data entry and more and more time. Campspot’s upcoming integration with Sage will be huge for me personally because I’m the one typing all of the sales. I’m looking forward to being able to put in the expenses and have the sales already there. It will be a huge savings of time.“
“When we started with Campspot, it was really about the online booking system. What keeps us with Campspot is that we see that you’re making some of the necessary changes. You know, there’s lots of software solutions out there. One of the sticking points for us is the way Campspot handles the calendar. You know, we get so booked up and then, you know, Joe Camper can’t see where there’s a gap. They have to put in their dates and nothing comes up and it’s like, sorry, no availability. But maybe if they just changed one day they could book a trip and so seeing the calendar where it shows them where they could stay with us, that was a very smart change. Those sorts of ongoing developments are appreciated. We also appreciate the year-over-year reporting and the general ease of being able to manage a full campground.”
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