Camping In Ontario Update Newsletter June 2019 September 2013 | Page 2

CAMPING IN ONTARIO UPDATE | 2 Executive Director’s Message Another camping season has come and is almost over! Mother Nature did not always cooperate with us this past summer with June being so wet, July being either sweltering hot or cold and August being nice, but definitely not hot. The poor weather prompted us to take out additional marketing this summer. We did digital advertising on the TTC and Union Station in Toronto, which produced an excellent bump in visits to our website from the GTA communities. We also took out advertisements in local community newspapers all over the province before the July and August long weekends. Two full-page advertisements in Horizon magazine were run in the June and July issues. In order to increase our Facebook friends, we took out a posting boost in August which produced 123 new likes and 27 people shared the link. A more active approach to Facebook has also lead to a 200% increase in Facebook referrals to our website. We are finding (not surprisingly) that the age group that ‘likes’ us is younger (under 35) than the group that picks up the directory (over 45). This is why we are putting more emphasis on our social media — we need to better reach our future longterm customers. Camping In Ontario partnered with GORving and the BC Campground and Lodging Association to produce a series of professional RV/Camping 101 videos. We have put them up on the new website and Facebook page. I encourage each and every one of you to view them when you get a chance and share them on your websites as well. The launch of the new website kept us pretty busy this summer. It would appear that the new website has been well received by both you and the camping public. I would like to thank all of you for your patience while we worked out some of the bugs in the system and for our poor timing. However, it is clear that you have all coped with and embraced the new technology — thank you for that. ONTARIO PRIVATE CAMPGROUND ASSOCIATION 305 Milner Ave, Suite 206, Toronto, ON, M1B 3V4 TOLL-FREE 1 877 672 2226 TEL [phone] FAX [phone] WEB www.campinginontario.ca EMAIL [email protected] PUBLISHER Guida Williamson DESIGN Sandra Friesen Design www.sandrafriesen.com Published 4 times per year, Update is the newsletter for the campground owners, operators and suppliers who belong to the Ontario Private Campground Association (opca). We attended the Association of Municipalities of Ontario convention in Ottawa in August. It was a great opportunity for us to meet with elected officials and municipal staff from all over the province. We had very simple messages. We either thanked them for keeping their local tourism office open, or explained to them why a local tourism office is so important; that we were an excellent resource on campgrounds, and that campgrounds are good for their local economy. Here are some interesting facts that we shared with them: almost 10,000 Ontario residents make a living in campgrounds; 10.5% of Ontario residents own some type of RV; and, we generate over $310 million dollars a year in labour income. It was encouraging to speak to many of your local elected officials and to find out how many of you they knew. That is great news for the industry! Fall is just around the corner and soon I will be seeing you all (I hope) at Convention. We have a great agenda, excellent speakers and a lot of fun planned. If you have not yet registered, I encourage you to do so soon and if you have not attended in the past two years, I encourage you to come back and give us another chance — you won’t regret it! Alexandra Anderson executive director