Official Website of:
California Association of
RV Parks and Campgrounds
PO Box 5648
Auburn, CA 95604
(530) 885-1624

California Camping Adventures at the State Fair

In the 2010 Visioning session the boards of CalARVC and Camp-California Marketing recognized a potential industry problem ...  evidence strongly suggests that young families are not getting into camping like they used to. That means there will be fewer and fewer campers, today and in the future.

Our purpose for participating in the fair was to encourage more Californians to Camp….to encourage parents to pull their kids away from their electronic gadgets and create family memories. Most adults camp if they were taken camping as a child. Because of today’s lifestyles—two working parents, split families, media generated fear about letting children play outside, competing leisure activities and the lure of “screens” (be it cell phones, computers, TV, Wii, or Xbox) – all these factors decrease the number of times families choose to camp.

Long time member, Marble Quarry RV Park, gave away discount coupons.

As your association, we have a better chance of reaching a greater number of Californians than each member has on their own, but we can’t do it without your help and support. We need parks from a three to four hour radius to be onsite reaching out to fairgoers with specific destination information. Different regions need to be represented: parks from the Delta, the Gold Country, Monterey Bay, North Coast, Redding & Shasta, Sierras and the Wine Country in order to create the most excitement and inspiration for a potential camper. We need to focus on destinations and have different member parks man their “destination table” promoting their parks at the same time.

Your challenge: the state fair is in the middle of summer. You don’t have the staff or time to be able to get away. Your loss: this is when and where the people are. It’s not like we can ask the state fair to move to October or November when you have time to participate. Even though the timing couldn’t be worse for you, if you want to lure and attract new customers you have to go to them. You can’t expect them to come to you.

Some question our participation. They would rather see us get more current campers into our member parks. We believe we already do that through our guide, its wide spread distribution and its 25,000 print run increase. We do so through our website, its keywords, metatags that make it come up high in Google & Yahoo searches for camping information. Our public relations program and high volume of press releases support both the guide and website directing campers to our information.

But what happens in five or ten years when fewer Californians choose camping as their preferred leisure activity? If we don’t reach out to growing families now, the number of Californians choosing camping will begin to decrease. Our job as an association is to grow the camping population. It’s no different than the Go RVing campaign. By taking camping information directly to the people, it keeps camping “top of mind” as a vacation/leisure choice. All of us who manned the State Fair event repeatedly heard the comment, “I haven’t camped in years!” Turning to their spouse, they would say, “We should go camping again.” Both would agree and pick up a copy of the Guide.

That is why we should be at the State Fair again, and at the LA County Fair, and other major events held throughout the state. A rising tide floats all boats. With member help we can get more Californians to choose camping!

Stand by for more information on opportunities in 2011 -- and how to sign up!

Read the report on the 2010 State Fair "California Camping Adventures">