Caravan Park Fees

They don't have to. You don't like the fees, don't stay. You can't find a free camp, too bad!

Just like prices of fuel and everything else, some are ripping us off, some aren't. Personally I wouldn't run a caravan park for all the tea in china.

I had a mate that had owned 2 pubs and once owned a van park. He told me the van park was by far the hardest to run - complaints, bitchiness, backstabbing, moaning etc.

Rather run a pub any day.

Bilbo

No disrepect, however what do you want to pay?

After talking to some good caravan parks on our trip, we were surprised to find that most of them aren't rolling in the money. Overheads eat into the fees, including such things as public liability insurance, vandalism costs, theft of all those plugs in the sinks etc.

Andrew

I wouldn't like to spend my life scrubbing toilets and showers, paying lease or rates, maintenance on all the plumbing equipment and grounds, gas, electricity, staff, and enough to pay a few home grocery bills as a profit, all from a few $25 fees. Long days, 7 days a week. Some times of the year would have to be leaner than others, but many of the costs would still stand. I admire them for running the parks so we can come in from the bush occasionally. Gee - it sounds a bit like farming!

We travelled from Perth to Canberra and back last January and other than the 2 nights staying with family we used caravan parks(Dad ,pregnant mum and 4 kids 2 - 9)
I didnt have a problem with any of the parks price wise.Most of the time you got what you paid for and more. From $18 a night at Eucla ,$15 a night at Crystal Brook (stayed there on the way over and again on the way back)We paid about $60 a night just out of Canberra which may have been a bit excessive but we wanted a patch of grass as opposed to bitumen elsewhere in Canberra.If we didnt like the price we moved on somewhere else.

$25 aint much for a toilet,shower,camp kitchen ,swimming pool and other stuff I dont think.
Evan

We found the average price to be around $18.00, which after a fair while in the Outback, seemed fairly cheap for showers, washing machines, BBQ etc.

After a week or so roughing it in a swag there's nothing better than having a warm shower, watching some little kiddies on holiday playing cricket, and using the washing machines in a caravan park for a night or two. But for $25-30 a night the stays are only ever for a night or two. Any longer and you're getting into cost of a tank of diesel.

I wouldn't think that owner/operators of caravan parks are driving around in Porsches.

Barnesy

RayJen Paj05

How much DO you earn a year 20-30-40-50-$60,000 per year do the sums

I ask myself how do they earn enough money to live?

$50,000 per year / 365 = $136.98 per day / $25 = 5.4 camper per day that's just to make ONE wage.

Now allow for a profit and the maintenance of the van park.

THINK THINK it's a god send

Richard

Like everything else these days......the price just keeps going up. Fuel goes up, accommodation goes up, food goes up, tyres....don't talk about tyres.

On our 56 day trek to WA this year we stayed 1 night in a cabin(it was wet), 9 nights in caravan parks, 5 nights paid bushcamps and the rest out in the scrub.

Cooper Pedy Dugout CP was $20pn
Newman CP was $25pn
Marble Bar CPwas $25pn Bloody tame Butcherbird sang all night. No hot water in morning.
Karratha CP was $29.60pn We got no sleep. Permanents mainly. Drunks and domestics and loud music throughout the night
Sandstone CP was $16pn
Menzies CP was $10pn
Fowlers Bay CP was $18pn

Now, you can have 2 showers each and use all the other facilities they may have. Sandstone had the best ablution block I have seen anywhere.

In comparison with that we paid $17.50 for one nights beach camp at Cape Keraudren with only long drop facilities and nothing else. Other bush camps along the west coast cost $6pn No facilities apart from Rubbish Bins and a Sullage point.

I was busting for a choccie at Pardoo Roadhouse. It was exactly double the price as we pay down south. Still....it was worth it..lol

Airfilter for the GQ was $55 in Karratha compared to $27 down south. I had to shop around to find a cheaper alternative.

Fuel this year hit $3pl at Kunawarritji

Freight costs are enormous out in the never never and everything you need has to come from somewhere else. That cost component is passed on to us.

Like everything else in life...If you don't use it you don't have to pay or "You take your chances and you pay your dime"(American saying)

Cheers

Wages ,insurance ,ect ect , profit on the $$$$$$ tied up in the park rather than in the bank , all ads up ,, my / our biggest beef when we stay in a c/van park is the price difference between powered and unpowered site , $5 to $10 for power for 1 nite ?? total rip-off . !!

Come on!

Your not fair dinkum are you? Tell me it's a tongue in cheek post.

Obviously you have never run your own business or managed one on behalf of someone else.

I look back on my days of running a brake/clutch/suspension outlet and thank God I'm out of it.

1) Lease costs
2) License fees required to open the door
3) Council approval fees
4) Insurance fees - Worker Compo, Public Liability:
5) That extra tax because I happened to give people jobs - payroll tax
6) All the costs involved in signwriting, local paper advertising etc....:
7) Donations - That's a biggy - Contributions to Youth Groups - Girl Guides - Brussel Sprouts and the local cats home. These are important because if you get a reputation in the local community as a rich, tight arse businessman you can wave half your clientele away.
8) Delivery vehicles, so I could free deliver a bleep y five dollar part fifteen k's down the road at no additional cost to the purchaser who would then take 120 days to pay me.
9) Wages for the driver of the above delivery vehicle who every time they go in to the local servo to fill up the tank would also tick up a packet of Windfield and two bags of lollies for her feral kids.
Oh yes, wages.
Let's look at that one! I paid my drivers 52 weeks of the year, that's right. Every bloody week, but lo and behold - they took four weeks annual leave every year, then on top of that took another ten Public Holidays which most years became eleven because the Government gazetted an extra, then they took no less than five days sick leave. That is now a minimum seven weeks a year going out in wages that a business has to cover over the remaining forty five weeks. Now if you think I'm unsympathetic to your original post just note that we have not even touched on the holiday loading the driver is payed for not coming to work or even the additional expense of employing a casual to cover her absence.

Stuff it! I'm gunna stop here before I become that deprtessed I go and top myself.

And you ask how they justify charging twenty five bucks a night?

Let's turn this right around, instead of bitching about twenty five bucks, how babout you tell us how much the charge should be and justify it with a detailed costing.

Ian

You call $25 expensive? They did a thread on park prices on the caravanners' site and a couple of parks were charging just under $100 per night for a couple with two kids during Christmas holidays. Others not too far behind. Think yourself lucky you're not stuck with school hols and work restrictions. Must admit, i wouldn't go near one at anywhere near that price (one was that place in Yamba), but remember paying just under $60p/n in Narooma four years ago for a place with dirty toilets and bins that were never emptied and stunk the place out. Big 4 - big rip-off.

Hi...
We paid nearly 40 bucks a night for an UNPOWERED tent site at Hawker... never again.. (2 adults, 4 school age children)
We thought that was pretty rich! Don't know why they need to charge adult rates for kids over 14.... THEY DON'T EARN ANY MONEY YET and the don't need any more shower water then the little ones....
Cheers

Don't forget to buy a caravan park even in the out back often costs several million dollars. Work out the payments on the morgage.

Given that we only use CPs on average about 1 or 2 days in 10 on a trip, I don't mind paying $25. The $35 and more charged at some is a bit steep though.

What really gets me though, is the amout charged for power at some CPs. We came across differentials of up to $6.00 per night betwee unpowered and unpowered sites. We have a CT, so don't use much power (no big fridge, air conditioner, mictowave, TV etc as in caravans). At Lee Point in Darwin, we stayed in an ensuite site where they meter the electricity separately. The 'rent' for the ensuite site is the same as a normal powered site, but you pay extra for electricity used. For a 7 night stay, they read the meter and the cost was just over $2.00. I assume this included a profit margin. Shows what a massive profit some CPs are making on electricity.

But as others have said, if you want the convenience of a CP, you have to pay the market price. If bush camping was ever banned and we had to stay in CPs, I'd be a lot more sensitive. But then I suspect I'd do a lot less travelling.

Happy to pay Cvan Park fees.

Its often a HELL of a lot cheaper for me to stay in a Cvan Park then to Camp in a National Park . . . with NO facilities . . . Go figure.

Something to also think about these days, especially along the coastal fringes is they are multi-million dollar properties with the council rates that go with that.

At the rates they charge, owning a Van Park is one of the best ways to make a small fortune.

Providing you start out with a large one.

Lots of people only ever see what they are asked to pay not what goes into providing the goods or service.

Overall, competition and the good old free enterprise system keeps things pretty honest

National Parks are gettimg worse than a lot of the caravan parks. Paid $9.00 to get into Cape Range NP (WA) a couple of years ago, and then got charged $10.00 per head per night to camp. Facilities. One long drop loo.Nothing else though. But it was a beautiful spot.