There was a time when owning a caravan park looked like a relatively uncomplicated business.

Buy or lease some land.

Install amenities.

Mark out caravan sites.

Collect nightly fees.

Maintain the grounds.

That description bears increasingly little resemblance to the sophisticated accommodation businesses operating across Australia today.

Holiday parks have become serious tourism assets — and corporate investors have noticed.

The modern operator isn't merely selling somewhere to park a caravan.

It is selling location, accommodation, recreation, convenience and experience while attempting to maximise the return generated by a finite parcel of land.

That is an entirely different business.

A $12.6 billion customer market

Australians made 17.3 million caravan and camping trips during 2025 and spent approximately $12.6 billion in the process.

Commercial accommodation captured the majority of holiday activity, accounting for most caravan and camping holiday nights and an even greater proportion of expenditure.

Those figures explain why sophisticated capital has entered the industry.

The customers already exist.

The business opportunity lies in extracting greater value from serving them.

The economics of a site

Consider a single waterfront holiday-park site.

The land is already there.

The road, electricity, water and amenities may already exist.

Historically, that site might have accommodated a relatively inexpensive caravan.

An operator has several choices.

It can continue selling powered-site nights.

It can install a cabin.

It can upgrade that cabin.

It can improve the surrounding amenities.

It can market the property nationally.

It can introduce sophisticated booking technology.

It can vary prices according to demand.

Each decision potentially changes the return generated by essentially the same piece of land.

That is yield management.

Airlines understand it.

Hotels understand it.

Increasingly, holiday parks understand it too.

One property, multiple customers

Holiday parks possess another attractive commercial characteristic: customer segmentation.

The same property can sell an unpowered tent site to a budget traveller, a powered site to a caravan owner and a premium cabin to a family seeking resort-style accommodation.

The infrastructure overlaps.

The price points don't.

That gives operators the ability to serve several tourism markets simultaneously without developing completely separate properties.

Corporatisation has arrived

The scale achieved by G'day Group demonstrates how far the sector has travelled.

Beginning with three Western Australian caravan parks in 2004, the business has developed into Australia's largest regional accommodation group.

Its Discovery portfolio has expanded through acquisitions across the country, while G'day Parks provides a national network for independently owned properties.

The group has also expanded into tourism experiences, booking technology and WikiCamps.

That progression is instructive.

Scale creates purchasing power.

Scale creates marketing power.

Scale creates customer databases.

Scale supports loyalty programs.

Scale supports sophisticated technology that an individual caravan park may struggle to justify.

And scale creates opportunities for cross-selling travellers between destinations.

Acquisition plus improvement

Holiday parks also lend themselves to a familiar investment strategy.

Acquire an underdeveloped asset.

Improve it.

Increase occupancy.

Increase the average nightly return.

Extend the season.

Improve marketing.

Then benefit from both increased operating earnings and potentially a more valuable underlying property.

Recent acquisitions by major operators regularly refer to development potential, additional tourist sites and upgraded facilities.

That language tells us what investors see.

They aren't simply buying today's caravan park.

They're buying tomorrow's earnings.

The beachfront moat

Business strategists talk about competitive moats — characteristics that make a business difficult to replicate.

A holiday park occupying prime coastal or riverfront land can possess an extraordinary physical moat.

A competitor can't manufacture another beachfront.

Planning restrictions may prevent another park being developed nearby.

Existing parks can therefore occupy locations that would be extraordinarily difficult, expensive or impossible to recreate today.

The land itself becomes part of the competitive advantage.

Digital transformation reaches the campground

Technology is changing the economics too.

Travellers increasingly discover availability online, compare properties, join loyalty programs and make bookings through apps.

That gives larger operators information about customer behaviour and demand that previous generations of park managers simply didn't possess.

A sophisticated operator can understand when customers book, where they travel next, which accommodation they prefer and what price produces the strongest combination of occupancy and yield.

The caravan park has joined the data economy.

Demand pricing changes customer expectations

Variable pricing is commercially rational but potentially culturally disruptive.

Australians historically associated caravan parks with inexpensive holidays.

When a premium cabin or highly sought-after site costs substantially more during peak periods, customers can experience sticker shock.

Operators therefore face the same challenge confronting airlines and hotels: maximising yield without alienating customers.

There is a price at which revenue optimisation becomes reputational damage.

Good operators will need to understand the difference.

Councils are operators too

Municipal holiday parks deserve particular attention.

Some councils control extraordinary tourism assets on coastal and riverfront land.

Historically these may have been regarded primarily as community facilities.

Today they can be significant commercial operations.

Councils therefore face an unusual responsibility.

They must consider financial return while maintaining public access, affordability, local tourism objectives and community expectations.

Running the park poorly potentially wastes a public asset.

Running it purely for maximum profit potentially changes its community purpose.

That tension will become more pronounced as these properties become more valuable.

The customer has changed

The industry isn't dependent solely upon caravan ownership.

Premium cabins and glamping accommodation have expanded the addressable market enormously.

Someone can now experience a holiday park without owning a tent, towbar or caravan.

That changes the investment equation.

The park isn't merely servicing recreational vehicles.

It is competing for Australia's broader accommodation dollar.

Regional multiplier

There is also an unusually strong economic multiplier.

Most caravan and camping activity occurs in regional Australia.

Visitors spend outside the park at supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, service stations, attractions and local retailers.

Consequently, investment in a successful holiday park can generate economic activity well beyond the property's boundary.

For councils and regional development authorities, that makes accommodation capacity an important piece of economic infrastructure.

The Business Times View

The caravan park has undergone one of the quieter transformations in Australian tourism.

What was once largely an owner-operated accommodation business has become an increasingly sophisticated asset class.

Location scarcity, multiple accommodation products, variable pricing, digital distribution, customer data and redevelopment opportunities have changed the economics.

The big operators have noticed.

So have institutional investors.

And councils controlling prime holiday parks would be wise to understand exactly what they own.

The lesson for business is straightforward.

Sometimes an old industry doesn't disappear.

It becomes more sophisticated — and considerably more valuable.