Ramon Van Reine, ACSI

Camping Business: Let’s start whit the history of ACSI. What was the evolution in the years?
Ramon van Reine: First of all, this year is our 55th jubilee! The creator of ACSI was my father, Ed van Reine, a school professor. Yet in the 60’s, in our country, school vacation were 6 weeks long, so we started very early to camp all over Europe. That was, for us, unique because it was the very beginning of the outdoor and camping tourism as we know it today. Everything, in this industry, ran fast at that time, the growth of every sector was huge and once, while we were camping in Costabrava, in Spain, my father faced, for the first time, the reality of a full booked camping. That was the moment he had the idea for ACSI, Auto Campers Services International, at first as a reservation system dedicated to camping travelers. After that, my father made the choice to leave the reservations and created the first European Campsite guide, a printed, to campsites.

That guide, for the first time in Europe, listed only inspected campings, an innovative feature, in that moment, for this growing market. The outdoor travelers needed informations, there was no Internet like today, and the guide made immediately a big success.