The first 25k of improvements at a 20 site park only gets one thing done, so which one

Question

Take a 20 site campground with about 25k available for improvements before next season and three things that want it. It is the kind of decision that produces strong opinions that are hard to defend, so it is worth laying out. The bathhouse. It works, and it is ugly. The fixtures are 1980s and it shows up in every review that mentions it, positively or negatively depending on the guest's expectations. A refresh is maybe 20 to 25k done properly. The power. Say twelve sites are 30 amp only. Upgrading a portion to 50 amp runs roughly 1,400 to 2,000 a site in most markets depending on the run, so 25k gets most of the way through. Bigger rigs will not book a 30 amp site in July heat because they cannot run air conditioning, so those twelve sites lose the guest with the most money. WiFi and signage. Cheap by comparison, maybe 6k total, and reviewers mention them constantly. The case for power is that it changes who can book and what you can charge rather than how people feel about what they got. The counter is that a bad bathhouse loses you the repeat guest, and repeat guests are the whole business at a park this small. For people who have actually spent this money, which one earned it back?

nicole_adeyemi · Answer

Before you pick, find out whether the electrical upgrade needs a permit and what the service capacity at the transformer actually is. Twelve sites from 30 to 50 amp is a real load increase, and that kind of project often stops at the utility rather than at the pedestal. If the answer is a service upgrade, the 25k is a deposit rather than a project. Requirements differ by state and by utility, so ask the utility directly and get the answer in writing.

tashaford30 · Answer

Power. Rate follows capability, and a 30 amp site in a hot market is a discount site forever.

ehernandez74 · Answer

Do the 6k of wifi and signage first regardless, because it is small and it addresses something guests are already telling you about, then put the remaining 19k toward whichever of the other two has a hard constraint. Parcel's transformer question decides that. One more thing worth pulling. If the park has any booking history by site, look at whether the twelve 30 amp sites actually sit empty in July or whether they fill last at a lower rate. Empty is a revenue problem you can fix with amperage. Filling last at a lower rate is a smaller problem than it looks, because those sites are still producing.

laurenkim53 · Answer

At low price points the ugly bathhouse is routinely the reason a place averages 3.6 instead of 4.4, and the rating is what guests sort by. Twenty sites cannot absorb bad reviews the way a hundred can.

priya_n21 · Answer

Can you do a partial bathhouse? Fixtures, paint and lighting, and leave the layout alone. Most of what guests react to in a bathhouse is surfaces rather than plumbing.

renee_dubois · Answer

Marlow's version is the right call. In small buildings, lighting, paint and new fixtures get you 80 percent of the perception for perhaps a third of the cost, and the plumbing rough in can wait for a year when it is the only thing on the list. Thicket, that would leave room for the wifi and signage plus a handful of the 50 amp conversions, and then you would have real data on whether the upgraded sites actually outbook the 30 amp ones at a higher rate. Do six rather than twelve. Next year you will know instead of arguing.

The first 25k of improvements at a 20 site park only gets one thing done, so which one

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