How is the perceived value of a camping village holiday created? In this contribution, Titanka! explores the relationship between pricing, service quality and the guest experience, examining the dynamics that are currently shaping the competitiveness of outdoor hospitality businesses.
Over the past three years, the average price of a stay at an Italian camping village has increased significantly. Some businesses raised their prices and saw bookings increase as well. Others raised their prices and experienced the opposite. The difference does not lie in how much they increased their rates, but in what they built around them.
The difference is called perceived value, and it is a far more subtle variable than price alone. Italian campers in 2026 do not reject price increases; they reject price increases that are not matched by a corresponding improvement in the service they receive. What many operators interpret as “price sensitivity” is, in reality, sensitivity to the relationship between what guests pay and what they get in return. These are two very different concepts, leading to two very different decisions: if the issue is price, the response is to offer discounts; if it is value, the response is to rethink the overall proposition.
This is the difference between an existing service and a designed service. A pet-friendly campsite can simply be tolerant – a water bowl at the entrance and a few extra waste bins – or it can be genuinely welcoming, with a dog-friendly beach, a map of walking trails suitable for dogs on leads, and an on-call veterinarian for emergencies.
These are two very different approaches, and guests can recognise the difference after just a few minutes of browsing a website. Entertainment can mean background music during the afternoon, or it can be a weekly programme designed around different age groups and interests. A swimming pool can simply be a pool, or it can be a water park with its own distinctive identity. The same service on paper, two very different price points.
The opposite temptation is to offer an “all-inclusive” experience without giving sufficient thought to quality. Adding more services to the list without redesigning them, expanding the range of facilities without improving any of them. This is the path many operators have taken in recent years, under pressure from rising costs and increasing guest expectations. It works only until guests begin comparing. And they always compare – whether with another camping village or with a completely different type of holiday. When they do, the difference between an existing service and a designed service becomes the real deciding factor.
There is also external pressure. Central European visitors – from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands – have been returning to Italy in growing numbers over recent seasons, bringing with them a clear benchmark. In Northern Europe, the camping village sector has offered high service standards for well over a decade. This creates room for higher prices than the Italian market has traditionally accepted, but only in exchange for services that have been thoughtfully designed rather than merely provided. The Italian businesses that have successfully attracted this market are often the same ones that have generated the margins needed to invest even further in value creation, creating a virtuous circle.
Italy’s camping sector has invested substantially in recent years. FAITA Federcamping explicitly attributed the sector’s growth in 2025 – 74 million overnight stays and €8.5 billion in turnover – not to pricing strategies, but to investments made by businesses in improving their offering, sustainability, accessibility and digitalisation. The camping villages that continue to grow over the next three years are likely to be those that understand that service is not a checklist to be completed, but an experience to be designed. The question for every camping village is not how many services it offers, but how many of those services guests genuinely perceive as adding value.
CampExpo: a new B2B trade fair for the camping industry launches in Germany this October