How do you set campground cancellation fees?

Structure it as a percentage of the reservation total or a flat fee, whichever is greater, so it scales when you raise rates.

What do you need before you start?

Before you write a single number into your policy, gather three things: a list of five to ten nearby parks and their published cancellation terms, your own occupancy data broken down by site type and by day of week, and your current nightly rates for each site category.

The ARVC 2023 Outdoor Hospitality Industry Benchmarking Report found that 78% of U.S. parks and campgrounds are independently owned small businesses. That means most operators set cancellation policy without the revenue-management teams that corporate parks use. A structured competitor survey is the practical substitute.

How do you run a competitor survey?

Call or book a test reservation at five to ten parks within a reasonable drive of yours. Note the cancellation window, the flat fee if any, whether they forfeit the first night, and whether the policy changes by season or site type.

Published government schedules give you a useful baseline. Recreation.gov charges a $10 cancellation fee plus forfeiture of the first night for late cancellations on individual campsites, according to Recreation.gov Reservation and Cancellation Policies. Arizona State Parks charges a flat $20 fee plus forfeiture of one night if cancelled after 2:00 p.m. the day before arrival, according to Arizona State Parks Reservation and Cancellation Policies. California State Parks charges an $8.25 fee with a full site-fee refund if cancelled seven or more days before arrival, but no refund within 48 hours, according to California State Parks Camping Information and Reservations Policies.

Those are public-land benchmarks. Private parks often charge more because they carry more fixed cost per site and have no taxpayer subsidy.

How do you build the fee structure itself?

Here is the workflow in order.

1. Pull your occupancy by site type. Full-hookup sites averaged 68% occupancy during months of operation, park model cabins 52%, rustic cabins and modern RV trailers 41%, and rustic and tent sites just 25%, according to the ARVC 2023 Outdoor Hospitality Industry Benchmarking Report. A site that fills easily can afford a lighter cancellation policy. A site that sits empty midweek cannot.
2. Pull your occupancy by day of week. Most parks hit 80% or more on Fridays and Saturdays but drop under 50% by Tuesday, per the ARVC 2023 Outdoor Hospitality Industry Benchmarking Report. A last-minute cancellation on a peak weekend night is a materially higher re-booking risk than one on a Tuesday.
3. Set your cancellation windows. A common structure uses three tiers: more than 14 days out, 7 to 14 days out, and inside 7 days. Adjust the windows to match your typical booking lead time.
4. Set the fee for each window. A percentage-of-reservation structure scales automatically. One private campground group publicly documents its policy as a $15 flat fee or 15% of the reservation total, whichever is greater, for cancellations more than 14 days out, with no refund inside 14 days, according to Gather Grounds Resorts Campground Cancellation Policy Explained. That structure means a two-week RV reservation pays a larger fee than a one-night tent stay without you doing any math.
5. Decide whether to forfeit the first night on late cancellations. This is common at parks with high weekend demand. It mirrors what state parks and Recreation.gov already do, so guests have seen it before.
6. Decide whether your policy differs by site type. A full-hookup RV site that books solid all summer can carry a stricter policy than a rustic tent site that struggles to fill midweek.
7. Write the policy in plain language and post it on your booking page, your confirmation email, and your office window.

What should a cancellation policy checklist cover?

• Cancellation window tiers and the fee or forfeiture for each tier
• Whether the fee is a flat dollar amount, a percentage of the reservation total, or the greater of the two
• Whether the first night is forfeited on cancellations inside a defined window
• Whether the policy differs by site type, hookup level, or season
• Whether you offer a credit toward a future stay instead of a refund
• Where the policy is posted and whether it appears on the booking confirmation
• A review trigger: any time you raise nightly rates, review flat-dollar fees

Hypothetical example

Peak season runs Memorial Day through Labor Day. The owner surveys eight nearby private parks and finds that most charge a flat $10 to $20 fee for cancellations more than seven days out and forfeit the first night inside seven days.

The owner checks her own data. Full-hookup sites run near capacity on weekends in peak season. Tent sites run around 30% on weekdays. She sets two policies. For full-hookup sites in peak season: a $20 fee or 15% of the reservation total, whichever is greater, for cancellations more than 14 days out; forfeiture of the first night inside 14 days. For tent sites year-round and all sites in the off-season: a flat $10 fee for cancellations more than 7 days out; forfeiture of the first night inside 7 days. She writes both policies into her booking system and posts them on the confirmation email.

When she raises her full-hookup rate to $60 the following spring, the percentage-based fee adjusts automatically. The tent-site flat fee stays at $10 until she decides the math no longer works.

What are the common mistakes?

The biggest one is setting a flat-dollar fee and then forgetting it when rates go up. The ARVC 2023 Outdoor Hospitality Industry Benchmarking Report found that 64% of parks raised main-season rates in 2023, with a median increase of 5%.

The second mistake is applying one policy to every site type. The occupancy gap between a full-hookup site and a rustic tent site is large enough, per the ARVC 2023 Outdoor Hospitality Industry Benchmarking Report, that the same fee structure does not serve both.

The third is ignoring what competitors charge. According to the BCLCA 2023 Annual Occupancy and 2024 Rate Survey, 30% of campground operators maintain a completely flexible policy. If every park within 20 miles offers free cancellation up to 48 hours out, a strict no-refund policy will cost you bookings even if it is financially justified.

What should you measure after you set the policy?

Track these numbers monthly.

Cancellation rate by site type: cancellations divided by total reservations for that site category. Collect this from your reservation system.

Re-booking rate on cancelled sites: how often a cancelled site fills before the original check-in date. Collect this by comparing cancellation records to the final occupancy report for the same dates.

Revenue recovered on cancellations: total cancellation fees collected divided by total revenue lost to cancellations. This tells you whether your fee structure is covering the real cost of a vacant night or just covering the administrative hassle.

Review all three numbers at the end of each season. If your re-booking rate on cancelled peak-weekend sites is high, you may not need a strict policy. If it is low, your fee is probably too light to offset the loss.

What should you do next?

1. List five to ten nearby parks and look up or call in their cancellation terms.
2. Identify your highest-demand site category and your lowest, and decide whether they need separate policies.
3. Draft a tiered policy with at least two cancellation windows and a fee for each.
4. Decide whether to use a flat fee, a percentage of the reservation total, or the greater of the two.
5. Post the policy on your booking page, your confirmation email, and your office.
6. Set a calendar reminder to review flat-dollar fees every time you update your nightly rates.