ACSI celebrates an important anniversary in 2025: 60 years since its birth. And it does so with an actual film that tells its story. The start of this reality, today a reference point for campers, began in 1965 with the publication of a first guide for tourists passionate about camper travel. The creator of the Auto Camper Service International (ACSI) project is the teacher Ed van Reine.
The ability to anticipate customer needs
The name ACSI has, over time, won over a growing number of travelers and industry professionals. Its success is due to the great perseverance of the founder, who continued despite some very difficult moments, but also and perhaps above all to his foresight and ability to understand and anticipate customer needs. ACSI has always invested in new technologies, paying close attention to market developments.
“In the early 1980s,” says Ramon van Reine, the current director of the business, “my father was one of the first in the travel industry to buy computers and we started working with the Internet very early. We have always been one step ahead of everyone else. ACSI has thus become the Google of camping, both offline and online“.
A significant anniversary
ACSI celebrated its anniversary year slightly early on Sunday, November 10. At the Pathé Cinema in Ede over 1,500 guests attended the premiere of a film that tells the story of the company and then the presentation of a book dedicated to this important anniversary.
In the summer of 1964, during a holiday in Catalonia, Ed, an avid camper, wondered why it was not possible to book a pitch in advance. He also thought it would be very useful to have information about the various campsites before arriving. He immediately gathered some of his fellow teachers, who like him could count on 6 weeks of holiday, and together they set off on a series of site inspections in Catalonia.
Valuable information
A year after those first visits, the first ACSI Holiday guide was printed and distributed, featuring 25 campsites along the way to Spain. Now, around 400 ACSI inspectors visit 10,000 campsites across Europe each year.
Campsite information is available in 14 languages and ACSI guides have a circulation of hundreds of thousands. ACSI websites are visited by millions, while its apps are used by almost half a million European campers. ACSI has built up strong relationships with many campsites that are willing to extend their season by accepting the CampingCard ACSI discount card.
Here is the video summarising the event of November 10:
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