I think the origination of Camper Nights came from the KOA organization.  KOA campground owners pay a fee on “Camping Revenue” only.  So weekly the owners report the number of camper nights and pay a fee on that revenue.

A camper night is a campsite occupied by a camper.  If a campground has 80 sites and have 53 sites occupied last night there were 53 camper nights for that day.

If a campground keeps records of camper nights it is a very good record to analyze.  It is one of the keys in evaluating a campground and because KOA does have these records for each campground, if you are to consider the purchase of a KOA you should examine these records.  The only way to review these records for a KOA campground is to get the ok from the owner to release these records.

It would be ideal for the campground industry to have a common measure of the use of the sites and Camper Nights would be a key and very helpful number for management evaluation as well as to analyze for the possible purchase.

Any contract to purchase a campground should include the right to examine ALL records of the campground including any measurement of campsite usage.  This right should also give you the right to get out of the contract if things are not as presented to induce you to sign the contract.  A ready to use contract is included (in fact two contracts in Word format on a CD) in our Campground Buyers Seminar Home Workbook.  www.campground-data.com/workbook.html

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