CampInn is the brainchild of Ido Perry, who set up the company in 2018 after his daughter threw up on him, his wife and all over the caravan when arriving at a campsite they thought was booked over the phone, but the last place was taken.
Planning to undertake a summer long road trip with his wife and 3 young kids, he found that booking camping pitches was a frustrating and time-consuming business. It was difficult to book over the phone or via emails with hardly any online booking capabilities. Sometimes that meant they had to arrive at a campsite they thought they had reserved only to find the last space already taken.
With a background as an experienced business developer, international tax consultant, lawyer, major in the reserves and a father, he realised that there had to be an easier way – both for the camper and for the site. “You imagine camping as a simple life but our experience made us think again,” he says. “We were not ‘happy campers’. I did my research into this sector and asked myself – why don’t the Booking.com’s, the Expedia’s and the meta searches of the world attend to the needs of the massive camping market, which is growing all the time?”
Turning ideas into reality
This was when CampInn.com was born – Ido has created a cross-market, multilingual, automated booking platform for glampsites, campsites, private landowners, and holiday parks. At the moment the focus is on Europe but with an aspiration to break into the US and southern hemisphere markets. Ido’s ethos is to help ease the journey to nature and that means building a site that provides access to the broader experience of enjoying the great outdoors. The site already gives travellers a taste of what to do in local vasinities and soon to come are also the ancillary outdoor services, such as bike hire or kayak rental, where it is easy to compare, book and manage reservations and payments.
Automating camping for the 21st Century
The core USP for CampInn is also to help the camping businesses easily manage their own businesses and bookings with an end to end online management system linked directly to the customer interface. The commercial arrangement is also simple, campsites join for free, get free online presence and when campers book CampInn earns a success fee for its work – so everyone’s a winner – campers enjoy a simple booking experience and campsites have an online presence and increased bookings.
“Before committing to this idea I put in 1O thousand kilometers, door to door, I’ve surveyed, researched and understood campers’ behaviour, how the industry is structured and how it is currently served,” adds Ido. “There are over a trillion nights spent at campsites – but I understand it isn’t going to be easy to win over every campsite owner – some of whom might still be using pen and paper to manage their businesses.
“But I’m confident we’ll succeed as I managed to convert Nancy, a campsite owner in Sud-Tirol, Italy – who wasn’t a big fan at first. When she realized that CampInn will cut her need for email and telephone communication by more than half, she joined us.”
CampInn has an outstanding support team in the UK, Europe, the Palestine Authority and Israel and is building up a significant number of glampsites, private campsites and established campsites, starting in Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and now in the UK.
If you are interested in hearing more about Ido’s plans, are looking to market your own site or link through your services please contact support@campinn.com.
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A version of this article was first published in International Glamping Business.