The evolution of tourism demand is also changing the way campsites need to approach digital marketing. Being present online is no longer enough: it is becoming increasingly important to reach the right audience, at the right time, with the right message and, above all, to turn interest into a booking.
This is the area where Campingnavigator is focusing an important part of its development, following the acquisition of CampingDreams. The new project expands the Dutch company’s offer by adding to the Campingnavigator platform, historically focused on helping people travelling with a tent or recreational vehicle find campsites, a digital campaign system built around an international community of more than one million followers.
“Campingnavigator has a very clear role: helping campsites reach the real camper,” explains Peter Doornekamp, General Manager of Campingnavigator. “We have a platform with around 8,000 campsites across Europe and an audience looking for information and destinations for their open-air holidays. CampingDreams allows us to add an element that was missing from our ecosystem“.
Strengthening the shoulder seasons
According to Doornekamp, the starting point is the complementarity between the two projects. “Campingnavigator is particularly strong at creating demand and visibility for campsites, including during the shoulder seasons, when a property may have a greater need to generate additional revenue. It is an activity that can help create the extra turnover that does not necessarily come automatically from the booking engine“.
CampingDreams, on the other hand, focuses more strongly on high-season demand and accommodation. “Here we are talking about people who are looking for somewhere to stay and who are much closer to making a booking decision. That is why our objective is not simply to generate traffic, but to take that traffic directly towards a booking.”
The difference is also important from a marketing perspective. Campingnavigator continues to be a reference point for people looking for a campsite, while CampingDreams uses its community to build campaigns aimed at specific audience segments and direct them towards individual properties.
An international community
The main asset behind CampingDreams is its community. Followers are organised through different Facebook channels and groups, with a distinct presence in the main European markets, including the Netherlands, the DACH region, France, Spain and Poland. “The value is not only in the number of followers,” Doornekamp points out. “It is in the possibility of working with communities that are already interested in camping and distinguishing between different markets. This allows us to understand much better who we are talking to and which campaigns work“.
CampingDreams defines this approach as High Impact Campaigns, combining its community with Meta campaigns, dedicated landing pages, newsletters and continuous optimisation. The stated principle is that every campaign should generate data that can be used to improve the next one. “We don’t simply want to run more campaigns; we want to run better campaigns. Every campaign allows us to learn something about the audience, the message, the images, the right moment to communicate and user behaviour,” Doornekamp explains.
A guarantee on results
This is where CampingDreams introduces one of the most interesting elements of its new proposition: the possibility of guaranteeing a minimum level of campaign results, rather than simply promising visibility. “This is an important difference,” says Doornekamp. “When a campsite invests in a campaign, we want to be able to guarantee that at least a certain level of qualified traffic will be reached. We are not simply talking about impressions or people seeing an advert: we are talking about visitors who belong to the target audience we are trying to reach“.
The commercial proposition therefore includes guaranteed levels of qualified traffic for the different campaign formats, while the stated objective is to progressively move the audience from reach to engagement, and then to clicks and conversion. “For us, it is important to be able to measure what we bring to the campsite. If we generate leads and these turn into bookings, we can use this information to make the next campaign even more effective“.
To achieve this, CampingDreams does not simply direct users to the campsite’s website. The system is designed to direct traffic towards the property’s booking engine, interfacing with the main systems used by the sector, including Phobs and CToutvert, as well as other booking platforms already used by campsites. “We don’t want to create another unnecessary step in the customer journey. If the campsite already has a booking system, we want to take the potential customer directly there“.
This approach also makes it possible to keep the different roles within the ecosystem separate: CampingDreams generates and qualifies demand, while the booking system already used by the property manages the next stage. “We don’t need to know the customer’s name or address,” Doornekamp adds. “To improve campaigns, we are interested, for example, in knowing which market the demand comes from and what results it generates. This information allows us to understand whether a particular campaign is working and how to develop the next one“.
The intelligence of data
The second distinctive element of the project is the partnership with OKeyRank, identified as CampingDreams’ Intelligence Partner. The objective is to use the data generated by campaigns to build a system of continuous optimisation. The process starts with analysing online visibility and extends to integrating campaign data, information relating to the individual campsite and the OKeyRank algorithm.
“Every campaign becomes a source of information for the next one. We can understand which audiences respond best, which messages work, which images generate more interest and which campaigns produce conversions. This means we don’t start from zero every time.”
The principle applies both to individual campaigns and to more structured programmes. CampingDreams offers specific activities for the different stages of the season, from Early-Bird and High Season through to Last Minute and campaigns targeting specific interests.
For Doornekamp, the acquisition of CampingDreams therefore represents more than simply adding a new platformto Campingnavigator’s portfolio. “We are building an ecosystem in which every platform has a role. Campingnavigator is aimed at campers and campsite discovery. CampingDreams focuses more on inspiration, accommodation demand and campaigns that can take users directly to booking. And then we have the Ontdek magazine, which has a more editorial and inspirational role.”
The result is an offer covering a broader part of the customer journey: from discovering a property to generating demand and then moving towards the booking system. “Our objective is to help campsites find the right audience. Sometimes that means working on the shoulder seasons; at other times it means supporting the high season or a particular type of accommodation. The important thing is to be able to use data and audience knowledge to decide which approach to take.”
From community to a new marketing model
CampingDreams therefore represents an evolution of the Campingnavigator model: an established community is transformed into an asset that can be used for more targeted digital campaigns, while the integration with OKeyRank adds an element of analysis and optimisation.
The first campaigns are already operating in several European markets, through both Campingnavigator’s direct activity and local commercial partnerships. “We already have the campaign data,” Doornekamp concludes. “Now we can use it to better understand what works and share this information with campsites. That is what makes the system interesting: we are not simply selling a campaign, but building a process in which every activity produces information that is useful for the next one.”
Hoxell: the digital orchestration of operational processes in open-air hospitality