New Website Strives to Help Campgrounds Get More Bookings, Encourage Travelers to Book Outdoors Vacations Online
WAUCOMA, IA (PRWEB) February 24, 2017 -- Outdoor enthusiasts and frequent travelers Sarah & Mike Jirak understand firsthand how difficult it can be for visitors to find information about campgrounds and resorts, especially when the task is so often reliant on the site owners and managers to get the word out themselves. Wanting to help alleviate that burden and to create a solution that makes it easy for travelers to plan and book their vacations, Sarah Jirak, Co-owner, explains how the idea of Stay Outdoors came about:
"When we were preparing for a trip to Colorado, searching for campgrounds was so time consuming and took me to more websites than I even planned on looking at.
Laying in bed one night, thinking about our upcoming trip, I wondered if there was a “go-to site” for outdoor accommodations. What if there was one website that listed campgrounds where you could search by location and amenities? Imagine how easy that would be. Needless to say, with this idea I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.
I woke up my husband, Mike, and ran the idea past him. Then we both got out of bed and began searching online; neither of us could find anything that jumped out at us. I felt this is one of those one-in-a-million ideas and, though we kept thinking to ourselves “Could this really work?”, we decided to actually act on it - thus, Stay Outdoors was created."
Stay Outdoors allows campgrounds and resorts to easily list their properties on a platform which can easily be accessed by anyone looking to reserve a campsite, houseboat, etc. When you consider that there are more than 30,000 campgrounds just in the United States, it would be a tall order to expect travelers to remember each one of them by name. Now you only need to know one place to look: StayOutdoors.com.
Here's how it works:
Campgrounds set up a profile of their property, including photos and site specifications, such as dimensions and amenities. Payment options include commission on a per-reservation basis or an annual fee. There are also additional advertising/partnership opportunities on the site and social media. Print advertising is very expensive and the audience is limited; Stay Outdoors is an economical solution for campgrounds and resorts to advertise - entities will also benefit by knowing exactly where the reservation is coming from.
For travelers, the site is completely free. Vacation planners can enter the geographic area where they want to camp, their preferred dates, and even desired amenities to begin their search.
Jirak expands more on the need for such a platform, “Having kicked off our social media presence just last year, Stay Outdoors already has acquired nearly 35,000 fans & followers - and that's without a product (we just launched our official website in November 2016)! To Mike and I, that shows there is a real need for and highly-desired solution for making camping reservations online…just as there is for hotels, vacation rentals, etc.”
Stay Outdoors has been completely self-funded by Sarah and Mike. They have formed affiliate partnerships with other small businesses for software & application development, branding & marketing, and even hooked up with a celebrity spokesperson, “Rowdie” Mitch Goudy.
The full website, StayOutdoors.com, is currently only available to campgrounds in order to acquire and develop a robust database of properties. Next, in early 2017, the Jiraks plan to release the full website to travelers so they can search and book their outdoor vacations for the upcoming travel season.
“You can’t imagine how many times I’ve heard (Stay Outdoors) is a "really good concept, I wish I thought of it". It confirms to me that, when you have that one-in-a-million great idea, you should follow it,” says Jirak.
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It is our mission to provide an easy solution for the outdoor enthusiast to plan and book their travels. In addition, we provide owners and managers of campgrounds and resorts an economical yet effective means of advertising their properties in order to attract more customers.
Sarah Jirak, Stay Outdoors, https://www.stayoutdoors.com:4430/, +1 (319) 343-7829, [email protected]
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