WELCOME!
The Kansas RV Park Owners Association welcomes you to our professional trade association’s website. If you’re seeking a listing of Kansas campgrounds and RV parks, please go to KSRVParks.COM.
MARCH 21 KPOA ANNUAL GATHERING
An Interactive Opportunity For Those Who Own, Operate, or Manage Outdoor Hospitality Businesses
Walt’s Four Seasons Campground & Country Store: 2500 Mink Rd Exit 281, Abilene, KS 67410
Doors open at 8:30 AM for mingling, and introductions begin at 9 AM, and wraps up at 3 PM.
Registration fee: $20 per person (lunch is included), payable at the event in the form of cash or check.
Register via emailing the park name and attendee names to CampKansas@ksrvparks.com by 3/18 at 9 AM CT (please also tell us of any food restrictions). Your email commits you to the $20 per person fee.
IS MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED?
We’re opening this year’s event to the non-members at the same $20 registration fee we’re charging members because we want to share some exciting industry news with you which impacts our programs for 2024, 2025 and beyond.
While we won’t be doing an all-out membership drive at this event, this event is a great mechanism through which you can hear our announcements and gain a better understanding of our future path. Non-members may join KPOA at this event, yet it isn’t required!
PRESENTATIONS:
- Creating additional revenue streams through community events
- Finding ways to support a family even with a small park that cannot expand
- Dynamic pricing impacts the bottom line
- Creating and operating a retail center
CRACKER BARREL SAMPLE TOPICS:
- Winter camping: how to keep the water on when its freezing
- Pros and cons of heated hoses
- Vendor/Supplier experiences for the retail store and for RV park supplies (hydrants, pedestals, etc.)
- Car Camping
- Online booking fees
- Ancillary revenue centers
- Charging for metering and calculating kwh usage
- Low-cost park events activities
- Best Practices with Wi-Fi (in house vs contracted out, expected service levels, etc.)
- Tutorial or instruction on Google Ads
- Paying for SEO Service
- Types of road surfaces
- Fees for your concrete sites vs your gravel sites
- Best practices or favorite / most effective equipment for maintaining gravel roads / sites
- Best practices around security cameras
INDUSTRY INTRODUCTIONS: We’ll hear briefly from several industry suppliers.
WHAT TO BRING:
- An open mind to the sharing of industry information
- Business cards, if you’d like to give them to the fellow attendees
- Your park’s rack cards, if you’d like to get them spread out around the state
- A notepad and pen for the array of information you might gain
- Questions to add to the Cracker Barrel Topics we started above
- Your check or cash for the registration fee
BACKGROUND
KPOA was created by campground owners for campground owners. We’re guided by a Board of Directors comprised of outdoor hospitality members from around Kansas. Even our Executive Director is a former park owner.
We were established in 1974. We were originally known as the Kansas Campground Association and more recently as the Kansas Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds. In 2021, the members chose for us to adopt the Kansas RV Park Owners Association name.
Our programs are evaluated and modified annually. If you haven’t been a member recently then you might not realize what you’re missing!
While we have some newly built Kansas campgrounds in our membership, we also still have continuing generations of some of our founding members.
MEMBERS, please use the login tab to access member-only information on our Hub (resources, discussions, Q&A forum, directories, etc.).
Board of Directors (as of 1/1/2024)
- President Richard Lord (Rutlader Outpost RV Park, in Louisburg)
- Vice President Ralph Newell (Kansas City West / Lawrence KOA, in Lawrence)
- Secretary Aaron Dreher (Creek Side Resort in Hays)
- Assistant Secretary Mark Atkinson (Walnut Grove RV Park, in Merriam)
- Treasurer Kelly McKenzie (Walt’s Four Seasons Campground & Country Store in Abilene)
- Director David Sachleben (Wilson RV Park, in Wilson)
- Executive Director Mary Arlington
AFFILIATIONS
We are active members of the Travel Industry Association of Kansas, and we have a seat on their Board of Directors.
We work closely with the Kansas Tourism office, and we are active with the Northwest Kansas Kansas Travel Council.
We are currently partnered with the National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds (ARVC). Outdoor Hospitality Members pay their dues to KPOA, and can choose to also gain full membership in the national ARVC.
FYI: As of 11/7/2023, the National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds (ARVC) is now known as OHI (pronounced O-HI) (Outdoor Hospitality Industry). We encourage those who use the ARVC logo on your website, as door decals, or in any other place, to update it with the new one. It might take until spring for us to find and replace all references to its former name and logo. To read more about it, click here for the published press release.
B2B (industry driven) and B2C (consumer driven)
KPOA is the acronym by which we discuss the association (B2B). The primary audience includes those in the outdoor hospitality industry, tourism industry, industry suppliers, and public affairs legislators and committees.
Kansas RV Parks (and sometimes Kansas RV Parks & Campgrounds) is the name through which we market camping in Kansas (B2C). The primary audience of outdoor enthusiasts enjoy following us online via our website, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter pages.
NEED MORE?
If this website doesn’t address what brought you here, please contact us so we can assist you.