Caravan Park Site Fees

Unless the park is owned by family member handed down over generations, then the cost of a caravan park is going to increase due to the size and location of the land. They can be located on prime development land which means the value is more in selling caravan parks for the land rather than as a going concern.

Buy a caravan park at these higher costs, and the repayments will be increased, being passed on to the travellers.

Just one thought.

Andrew

What you're forgetting is the owner has paid a substantial sum of money for the property and has to get a reasonable return.

Cheers,

Jim.

Curlynan

I have to agree with you here,we,at Easter, always go to Evans Head with another member Hairfysh. we thoroughly enjoy our time there as it is very kid friendly and great facilities for them and us.
As of next year we will be heading bush for Easter as the fees for there will be going up by $50 per week.Buggers me why they are jacking the cost up that much when if you were to go back there next year nothing would have changed ie; no upgrades of anything.

It is called supply and demand.
If everone stops going, the price will reduce, not 'till then.
The operator seeks to maximie the profit.
The market (customer) sets the price, not the seller.
A night in a caravan park is worth what people will pay.

They will never make any money from us.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Well as a comparison we have been staying in parks and the prices have been as high as $40 a night (Big4 Melbourne)
down to $26 a night at Wycliffe Well and Erldunda.
At Ayers Rock it is $19 PER PERSON and Kings Canyon $18 per person.
This for a Dusty windswept barren place.

In contrast at Alice Springs the McDonell Ranges Park for $36 a night is a wonderful park with shade, well grassed sites or slabs.

Is a delightful park with several large clean amenities blocks.
They couldnt be more helpful and they seem too be fairly busy all the time.
Guess stuff costs for transport etc but Diesel was cheaper at Kings Canyon $152.9 than Erldunda and Wycliffe Well $175.9.

Cheers

If YOU don't want to pay the prices asked then drive on by as there are plenty of 'well off' travellers who probably don't even know how much parks charge. The wealthy have made it very hard for the 'not-so-well-off'. Mind you, IF e v e r y o n e boycotted parks that charged say in excess of $20.00 a night powered site then the (high) prices would tumble. It's called price control influenced by customer choice a complete change to price influence by greedy sellers.

Pointed out to me when had my solar install done. 40 nights @ $25 a night is $1000. 40 nights is not 6 wks. From the time we had the solar install we have only been into free or $5 to $8 a night local community park or show ground camps. With the money we saved the 1st year paid for the solar install. 2nd year purchased diesel heater $1425 and added extra water tank. Life is great free camping. The big thing free camping you do meet nicer people that are more attuned to nature and the joys of travelling. They enjoy bush walks and look after the environment. They dont leave rubbish or even pick up from other grubs. We find foreign travellers in whizzbangers like Wicked campers really bad in all ways.

I agree it is hard to justify the cost at some caravan parks but when you look at some of the WA coastal parks the land tax amounts to $15 per day per site 365 days a year the cost mounts up. Just remind yourself how much you are contributing to the Mandurah railway when you pay your $30 plus per night and it could make you feel better. Not me, I go somewhere else.

Neil

It also depends on the turnover. In a low traffic area, proprietors may spend their lives cleaning toilets and paying overheads for very little gain. I have worked out roughly the cost of overheads in a small park, and i would not like to be in that position.

Also the overheads continue all year, and peak traffic may be for only a few months - this all needs to be considered in running a business.

We don't use CPs often, and don't like to pay top dollar for sub standard facilities, but caravanners on the internet soon know about where i found good, bad or ugly. Most CPs we have been to have been good. We have not been to 'coastal resorts' and this is the type of park often maligned for high fees.

Motherhen

At Groper Ck. it's $20.00 per night or $120.00 per week for a powered site. Stay longer and go onto the weekly rate of $95.00,and get metered power. user pays. Showers are metered too, 10c in the slot gets you 3 minutes of hot water. I've already got about $5.oo worth of 10c bits stashed in my toilet bag. Good value with a pier and two launching ramps too. Can't say the same for a lot of private parks though. Cheers all.

Roger B..........

you can get cards like big4 that will give discounts on accomadation at there parks.

We are currently in Tassie and recently paid $30 for a powrd site - no water as the bore was down and then were charged $1 for 6 min shower NOT HAPPY JAN

Great Topic! We stayed at a BIG4 Park in Melbourne CDB last week. For a powered TENT site (very small indeed) for 2 adults and 2 kids (ages 2 & 5) we were charged $59.50 per night!!! And we are big4 members. We were the furthest site from both amentities and freezed our butts off for the 2 nights we stayed. Couldnt run a fan heater in the tent as it was nylon and only used the showers. No swimming in gorgeous pool and spa as it was way too cold. We spent money in the games room where the kids played for an hour for about $25 in gold coins.

So we cant work out for the life of us how that kind of nightly rate can be charged for a tent site in off peak!! We figure too that our 2 yo should have been free... Other caravanners told us they paid $38 a night for a site opposite the amentities and they are members as well. So that means we were charged $20.50 for the two kids per night or for just one 5 yo if our 2yo was FREE??? How can they justify that. The park amenities were very well maintained up where the caravanners stayed, and the amenities down the back area where we camped were reasonably good but even so it makes what used to be a cheap getaway for a family start to look a bit hard to face!!!!! And not even in school holidays.

Biggest worry we now face is that we are leaving in 4 wks for lap of oz and we budgeted about $30 a night for powered or unpowered site for our camper trailer but now we are thinking we will need to increase it to $50 a night just to safeguard the budget....or we may HAVE to now free camp one to two nights a week to make the budget last as well. This is fine but again we dont see the value in what we as a family are being charged these days. Being from the country our kids are used to being water wise etc as well so we definitely dont get our money's worth of water and electricity we are being charged for !!!!

Hi Curlynan,
Its about time Exploroz put up a page with CP prices.It would make travel budgetting alot easier.We are travelling with 2 kids and have tried to free camp alot of the way,how much water and power do kids use ? Today we pulled into Exmouth to have some minor work on the 4by and one of the parks wanted $55 a night. What a ripoff !!!, we managed to get one down the block for $45 still a bit steep for 1 night but what can you do. I'd love to shame them but i would probably be moderated.

cheers
Humie and family

I agree, $8-$10 for kids is too much. For 2 kids, thats just about another site! If you've got 3 it is! Maybe I'll do that sometime.. book one site for me and the Mrs, one for the kids! That will give us room to spread out and park the car!

Cheers, Nige.