Caravan park rort – is it fair to pay extra to be with friends?
Some caravan parks are charging campers $10 a night to be next to their friends. We think it's price gouging. What do you think?
By Catherine Best,
July 16, 2025
I recently booked a weekend getaway with my family at a BIG4 holiday park and was gobsmacked to learn we would have to pay extra to be near our friends. This was a bells-and-whistles caravan park near Geelong, with a pump track, indoor pool, big playground… you get the picture. It was the first weekend of school holidays, so naturally prices were already eye-watering, despite it being the middle of winter.
I stumped up the money for two nights – almost $250 for a powered site for my family of five – and was shocked to receive an email after I’d made the booking asking if I would like to pay for a “site/unit guarantee” to be next to our friends. I’d indicated during the online booking process that we had friends and would like to be together.
I wouldn’t have minded a small, one-off administration fee, as I appreciate there’s some logistical gymnastics involved in siting groups together. But that’s not how it works. It was going to cost an extra $10 per night, per site, and my friends had to agree to the extra charge as well. The upshot was the park would make an extra $40 from our two families for a weekend on top of more than $450 we had already paid combined. I was seething, but I paid it so that our five kids could all be together. It was only two nights and an extra 20 bucks didn’t break the bank.
Smells like price gouging
It’s the principle. If we were staying a week, the cost would have been $70 – double that if we had booked a cabin, which attracts a “site/unit guarantee” fee of $20 per cabin, per night. Imagine it’s the summer school holidays and a group of three families books adjoining cabins for 10 nights. That’s $200 per family in extra fees, and a tidy $600 profit for the holiday park for shuffling some names on a map.
When I questioned the cost and whether this was now standard practice at BIG4 parks, this is the response I received: “Many parks are starting to use this optional fee in some form or another and we … have been using it for many years.”
I asked BIG4 how many of the group’s 300 holiday parks around Australia charge this fee and if the cost is justified. This is the response I received from CEO Sean Jenner:
“Our BIG4 parks are all independently owned and operated and as such they determine their own booking terms and prices. While this is not a standard across our parks, it is an option that provides choice and flexibility to guests, not dissimilar to seat selection on planes.”
The sting of airline-style add-ons
Oh dear. It seems the once-affordable caravan park has gone the way of airlines, trading customer service for profit. What’s next? The bad old days of coin-operated meters in the showers (yes, I know some parks still do this). There’s a difference between charging for a service that has a legitimate delivery cost – the time it takes staff to manage a Tetris board of bookings in peak season – and price gouging. I would argue that slugging a family $140 a week to be in a cabin next to their mates is shameless gouging. Pure and simple.
And it seems the caravanning and camping community on Facebook agrees. While parks that have this charge seem to be the vast minority, there are numerous examples of guests being stung fees at various parks for the inconvenience of being sited near friends.
“What a joke! Greed, especially to charge per site, per night,” one commenter scoffed.
“About time we boycott these big businesses… they are getting outrageous,” another said.
Did I mention we enquired about a late check-out and were told that would be $20 for an extra two hours?
I understand some parks charge a fee for requesting a particular site, for example being close to the pool or the playground. But what happened to first in best dressed? Alternatively, have a different fee structure for ‘premium’ sites near the pool or beach (some parks do this). There’s a Victorian council-run beachside caravan park we have stayed at numerous times where guests can choose their own sites through the booking platform. Get in early and you can secure sites closest to the beach with however many friends you like. Leave it late (as we did) and you might be dotted across a few rows. Either way, there is no administrative burden on staff and the cost is the same wherever you choose to pitch or unhitch.
What happened to affordability?
At a time when families, in particular, are struggling with cost-of-living pressures, caravan parks need to ensure they remain a good value-for-money option. Especially when they are increasingly competing with free camps and more cost-effective Hipcamps and low-cost campgrounds. A March 2025 consumer sentiment report by the Caravan Industry Association of Australia (CIAA) found 76 per cent of respondents believed caravan and camping holidays offered good value for money. However, half disagreed that domestic travel offered better value for money than overseas holidays.
“For the caravan park sector, these findings underscore the importance of maintaining and enhancing their reputation for affordability and value,” the report said.
Is $10 a night to be next to your mate value for money? I don’t think so.
What do you think? Should caravan parks charge people extra to be next to their friends, and would you pay it? Let us know in the poll below and share your thoughts in the comments.
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