As we enter into 2021, we join everyone in the U.S. in the want for human interaction after COVID. Connection to family and friends are things every person is yearning for, and the great outdoors is one way many families have begun to reclaim this sense of normalcy. In fact, camping has seen a surge since March as outdoor activities are looked at as a safe way to have fun. With this mindset, we see campgrounds and RV Parks stepping up to keep their customers safe and provide them with fun and socially distanced activities.
Below we highlight some of the activities offered and guidelines our campgrounds and RV Parks across the country are using.
5 Social Distanced Campground & RV Park Activities:
1. Fishing Tournament
Fishing is already a socially distanced activity. To provide a little extra fun, award prizes to first catch, biggest catch, and most fish caught. Make sure to provide enough tackle or poles if people forget their own and have “drop stations” for the end for a completely contactless event.
2. Scavenger Hunt
This one gets a little tricky as you cannot have guests running into each other during the hunt. To keep this from happening, you can time each team and give them staggered start times. To keep the fun contactless, tell them to take pictures in front of locations around the grounds instead of collecting anything to win. The fastest team wins.
Another way to do this is to provide a printout of nature items to collect, including local to the area leaves or even different rock shapes. This one would be a little more fun for kids who would enjoy learning about local nature throughout the hunt.
3. Kayaking or Paddle Boards
Renting out both is a great way to give people something to do while keeping them in small groups. Just make sure to sanitize everything properly. One way to streamline this is by offering pre-paid options on your website so guests can come to a window, show you their ID and collect their gear. If it is all lined up based on rentals for the day, this too can be contactless. Need a way to offer amenities on your site? You guessed it, Bonfire does just that!
4. Movie Night
When throwing a movie night, make sure you have sections in front of the screen that are clearly marked and 6 feet apart. You also need to make sure there are paths guests can find and use to walk around if they have to go to the bathroom or leave to go back to their campsite.
5. Trivia or Bingo
Mark off your seats to six feet apart and pick your favorite socially distancing friendly game for the camp to enjoy. Bingo and trivia are great choices. A megaphone/speaker system is optional but recommended if your campground residents are spaced out. Make sure to not reuse cards. Alternatively, have participants print out/make their own to avoid hand to hand contact.
Top Safety & Cleanliness Guidelines for Campground & RV Parks:
Cleanliness has always been important for RV Parks and campgrounds, but right now, it’s an absolutely crucial part of containing the virus to prevent spread to customers and staff. Because COVID-19 can live on certain surfaces for hours, park staff must make sure to clean and disinfect all areas of the park where staff and customers go, with special attention paid to places they frequent, like restrooms and bathhouses.
Ideas to make cleaning easier and keep customer/staff interaction low:
For any public places, especially restrooms, we recommend choosing 3 times throughout the day to shut down the area and disinfect thoroughly. Choosing times late at night and late afternoon will cut down on people needing to use these areas during these times.
Add plenty of disinfecting stations near entries and exits of any places customers might touch. Additionally, make sure to put signs next to doors as well as paper towel dispensers instructing people to open the doors without touching them to keep any germ spread to a minimum. Don’t forget to add trash receptacles around these places, so people are not stuck with the paper towels after use.
Limit the number of people in all areas, such as laundry rooms. One way you could regulate this easily is by allowing campers to schedule a time to do their laundry. You could use online apps such as Calendly to streamline this process.
Allowing people to pay for any amenity or offering online keeps people from needing to come into the office. You can do so by having an online store like what is offered through Bonfire’s software. (more about this below)
Make sure you have clearly identifiable markers on all areas where campers might be to make sure they stay 6 feet apart.
For Staff:
Wear disposable gear while cleaning (gloves, face masks). If wearing gloves, throw them out after each cleaning and wash hands after.
Ventilate rooms while cleaning by leaving the windows and door open.
Wash hands thoroughly before and after each cleaning. Use soap and water, and wash for at least 20 seconds.
Remember, cleaning does not mean disinfecting. This is an important distinction to make as you need to clean AND disinfect properly. Here is what the CDC has to say about disinfecting:
CDC Guidelines
Contactless Payments and Check-In + Check-Out Options for Campground & RV Parks:
The best way to remain as contactless as possible is to allow customers to prepay and give information online. While we know almost all RV Parks and Campgrounds have websites, giving guests the ability to also choose their campsite, add on amenities such as firewood, s’more kits, kayaks and other things they might normally grab at the general store and keeping check-in/out frictionless is harder to implement. At Bonfire, we allow you to do all of that within one streamlined management system.
Click here to view a video on how amenity add-ons work within Bonfire’s system.
No matter what you do, you will have campers who need things throughout their stay. Again, the way to limit contact is to offer all general store items for purchase on your website. Simply place a sign on the general store window with a QR code scanner linking to where they can purchase amenities to add to their stay.
Bonus: Since you know which spot they are located at, you could even choose to deliver them to their assigned site.
Check-in/checkout gets a little harder as it is different for every campground. One way to limit contact is to email the customer asking them to call or text on arrival instead of check-in at the front office. If you are using a campground management platform like Bonfire, they should already have their assigned spot and received a map of the park via email.
Bonus: If a customer is checking in after hours, one of our parks came up with a genius solution. They made their own check-in/reservation kiosk using Bonfire, a WiFi connection, and an iPad. This system allowed users to check-in, reserve/pay, and even assign themselves a spot. Here’s how you can do it too.
Contract-Tracing Programs for Employees and Long-Term RV Park Residents:
Peace of mind for both you, your employees, and even long-term residents can go a long way during a pandemic. Luckily, new technology allows you to have this through online contact tracing programs such as ParkHub Trace. These programs are inexpensive and can provide real-time information to make sure no outbreaks happen at your park, something that could close your gates for up to 1 month.
The way it works:
Users take a 2-minute survey in the morning about any symptoms they might have.
The app tracks who they come in contact with throughout the day.
If the user tests positive, they log it in the app and anyone they came in contact with gets alerted with information about if they should quarantine or not.
If someone does test positive, you can choose to quarantine those who came in contact with them and figure out next steps without having to quarantine your whole staff.
We salute all the Campgrounds and RV Parks across the U.S. who have stepped up during the pandemic to provide families with a way to cure their “COVID blues”. As always, if you have any questions about how Bonfire can streamline your campground management system from accepting online reservations to streamlining your POS system, please reach out to us by emailing howdy@letsbonfire.com.
