Digital services for the camping market still in their infancy

Despite the market for camping holidays booming for over five years, digital services for camping tourists is making only slow progress. Speaking at ITB Berlin on Thursday, Michael Frischkorn, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Pincamp, the camping portal of the ADAC, attributed this to the very patchy availability of information and camping site owners seeing little need to present themselves online. Change was afoot however, he said.

Compared with package tours, air travel and hotel bookings, the camping industry clearly lagged behind in respect of digital services, Frischkorn said. Until a few years ago, printed camping guides such as the ADAC’s were standard for planning a holiday or booking a camping site or mobile home.

The rising popularity of camping holidays, not least a result of the Covid pandemic, which had frequently become a hallmark of individualism, and the fact that multiple aspects of camping reflected many of the latest mega trends, had however resulted in the industry’s previously rigid structures taking digitalisation on board. Pincamp (www.pincamp.de) not only handles bookings for the ADAC, but those for the TCS (Switzerland) and ANWB (Netherlands) as well.

The boom has also indirectly made it increasingly necessary to book, in order for camping enthusiasts, previously used to making a spontaneous decision, to be able to find a place for their tent or mobile home during the peak season. Surveys frequently reveal that being able to book online is an important factor when choosing a certain provider. “The customer is driving digitalisation“, Frischkorn said.