In this article we will address an issue that many en plein air tourism professionals are dealing with these weeks. Although they have planned their sales in good time, invested in marketing by making the most of both direct and indirect channels, and monitored booking trends on time to adjust their pitch… today they have to run for cover for unsold availability in their Camping Villages.
The right time to start thinking about a Last Minute is when there is still enough technical time to be able to fill those availabilities; for example, at the end of June you can still try to work on occupancy for the week between July and August.
Quite different is the case when you realize on Friday that you have 20 housing units to sell for the following week. Emergency yes, but let it be recoverable! How to do it?
Evaluate sales rates
The first thing to determine is the rate at which to sell additional stays. Facilities that charge dynamic rates may try to “shift up a gear,” while for those that charge a fixed price list, a good idea might be to include benefits or services normally considered extras in the stay. It can be very useful to “package” a ‘ special “Last Minute” offer , possibly not comparable with the sales rates charged up to that point to avoid bad feelings from those who have already booked.
Minimum stay
If there are restrictions on minimum stay for the period you are trying to push (e.g., mandatory week, perhaps with fixed arrival and departure days), we might consider exceptionally accepting shorter stays, perhaps only for a set number of accommodations.
Last Minute Offers for Camping Village: how to make them visible!
First commandment: post the offer on the website, the main SELLING showcase for a Camping VIllage.
A dedicated page is needed that best tells about the proposal, emphasizing the pluses, and will serve as a landing page for all advertising campaigns that will be activated.
- Google is THE FIRST PLACE where people do their vacation searches, so with Google Ads campaigns you can intercept specific searches from tourists interested in what we are offering.
- Meta (Facebook + Instagram), on the other hand, is a world where every Camping Village can stay in touch with interested people who follow them. This is precisely where a Last Minute Offer can tickle their interest (even if they are not looking for anything about it) and prompt them to send a request to stay.
WARNING: Whether it’s Google or Meta, the campaigns must already be active, which is why it was reiterated from the beginning that scheduling was critical.
Starting from 0 driven by the urgency of unsold availability in the middle of the season is tantamount to burning budget!
Direct stimulus to those who have already booked
All those customers already confirmed for the week before/after the “critical” period are a good source of contacts to whom to propose a benefit. Why not extend your vacation by 2/3 nights by anticipating your arrival or postponing your departure?
A good idea might be to decline the offer for this group of people and propose the opportunity to them directly (preferably with direct phone contact). If even a very small % of them accept they will still be reservations with 0 acquisition cost!
Recall on quotes sent and not confirmed
With a professional CRM (such as Mr. PRENO), it is possible to trace many contacts who have sent a request to stay, received it from the Camping Village but have not confirmed it.
These contacts are invaluable because they are highly on target: perhaps some of them have booked elsewhere, but so many others may simply be undecided. By sending them a new message we can lead them to reconsider a stay in our Camping Village: after all, a Last Minute offer is a great incentive!
Newsletter to the Camping Village database
The newsletter subscriber database is a gold mine for every Camping Village! These people could be loyal customers or simply people who have asked for information but are still interested in the news and offers. Therefore, it is important to inform them promptly with a newsletter dedicated to the new last minute offer, they may react by sending a booking request.
Promotional portals: allies from the first moment… to the Last Minute
Promotional portals-such as CampingVillage.Travel-are THE FIRST step on the path to finding a vacation, but at the same time they can also be an important ally for Last Minute sales. Two reasons out of all:
- there are tourists for whom the normal booking process does not begin months in advance, but only 30 days in advance. The data show us that: in this graph we can see that a good percentage of requests arrived at Italian Camping Villages through the CampingVillage.Travel network in 2023 had a short booking window, so there is a slice of people who could be intercepted by Last Minute offers:
- CampingVillage.Travel’s campaigns (Google, Meta, e-mail marketing, Telegram, etc…) are always active, constant and ongoing and reach large numbers that the individual Camping Village often fails to intercept, so this is a great sounding board and sales opportunity!
If checking the schedule on the management system reveals worrying unsold availabilities in Camping Village it is still important to act promptly, it is a fight against time!
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