What is the most important question to ask in a demo?

Ask for the demo to be redone with your own rate card and your own pitch types, not the sample ones. An hour spent configuring your real data tells you more about the software than ten hours of presentation, and nearly every limitation surfaces there.

How do I tell whether software was built for campgrounds or for hotels?

From the vocabulary and the data structure. If pitches are configured as rooms, if types are a text field rather than an entity with its own availability, and if a long stay is just a long booking like any other, the software was adapted, not designed for the open air.

Is it acceptable for campground software to have no channel manager?

It depends on how you sell. If most of your business comes from OTAs, it is a knock-out requirement and there is nothing to discuss. If you sell mostly direct, it is a secondary matter. What is not acceptable is a vague answer: ask which portals, how often it syncs, and whether the connection is included or costs extra.

Why should I ask how I export my data?

Because it is the question that measures the balance of power. A supplier who gives you a complete, readable export of your data is not afraid of you leaving; one who answers vaguely is telling you that the cost of leaving will be their main argument at renewal time.

How do I judge technical support?

Not by asking whether it exists, but by asking who answers on 14 August at 7 pm and how fast. Support for campground software is judged in high season, the only time a problem really costs you.

What is the difference between software that files the returns and software that exports a file?

An hour a month, and the responsibility for remembering. A system that generates a file for you to upload by hand on a portal leaves you all the work and all the chances of missing the deadline. It is worth asking explicitly which of the two it does, because in presentations both are described with the same words.

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12 questions to ask before signing for campground software (and the answers that should worry you)

2026-07-31

Software demos are all beautiful. They last an hour, they are run by someone good at it, and they use a sample campground where everything is already configured and everything works.

The problem shows up three months later, when you discover that your "shaded tent pitch near block B" type does not fit the data model, or that your municipality has a tourist tax rule the software cannot express.

These twelve questions exist to make that discovery happen during the demo. They are in order: the first ones separate open-air software from hotel software painted green, the last ones separate a supplier from a salesperson.

Questions about the data model

1. "What are pitches called in your system?"

An apparently stupid question, in fact a decisive one. If the configuration screen says "rooms", "units" or "resources" and pitches are a customisation of those, the software was adapted to the open air, not designed for it.

Good answer: there is a pitch entity, with its own attributes — size, hook-up, shade, type of vehicle allowed. Warning sign: "you can call them whatever you like, just rename the rooms".

2. "How many pitch types can I create, and how do they behave?"

It is not enough to be able to list them: every type needs its own availability and its own price.

Good answer: unlimited types, each with its own inventory and its own seasonal rates. Warning sign: the type is a text field or a label, and there is only one pool of availability.

3. "How many seasons can I define, and do I choose the dates?"

An Italian campground has at least three bands and often five, with dates that change every year and special weeks inside the high season.

Good answer: unlimited seasons, with free validity periods and a price for every type × season combination. Warning sign: "you can set high and low", or the seasonal price is a percentage applied to a base price. The percentage looks elegant and forces you to do the sums by hand every time a price does not come out round.

4. "Do you calculate availability by type or by individual pitch?"

It is the technical question worth the most, and almost nobody asks it.

The guest buys "a caravan pitch with electricity", not pitch 47. If the system calculates availability on the individual numbered pitch and assigns it at booking time, it will make you turn down bookings while the campground is not full.

Good answer: availability by type, with the pitch assignment decidable up to arrival. Warning sign: "the pitch is assigned automatically to the booking". Then ask whether it can be changed, and how many clicks it costs — which is the next question.

5. "Move a booking from one pitch to another, now."

Do not ask about it: ask to see it done, in the demo, live.

It is the operation you will perform twenty times a day in high season: the group that wants to stay together, the family asking for more shade, the pitch that floods after a storm.

Good answer: you drag it on the planning board, and the bill updates by itself if the type changes. Warning sign: the booking has to be cancelled and recreated. If that is the case, in August you will never do it, and you will keep the holes in your calendar.

6. "How do you handle seasonal guests and long stays?"

A contract from April to October is not a long booking: it has a fee instead of a nightly price, guests who come and go, and different rules on tourist tax and recorded stays.

Good answer: there is a long-stay type, the pitch stays committed for the whole period, and actual stays can be recorded. Warning sign: "just make a 180-night booking". That works, until you have to record the grandchildren who spend a week in July — and they have to be reported to the police and counted for the statistics.

Questions about legal obligations

7. "Alloggiati Web: do you file it, or do you give me a file to upload?"

In presentations both are described with the same words — "we handle Alloggiati Web" — and they are completely different jobs.

Good answer: the filing goes out from the system and the receipt is kept alongside the booking. Warning sign: "we export the file in the correct format". Fine, but then somebody has to log into the portal every day and upload it, and in August that somebody will forget.

The same question applies to the regional statistical survey, which is a separate obligation on a separate platform.

8. "My municipality's tourist tax — how do you configure it?"

Bring them your municipality's regulation and ask them to configure it in front of you. Age exemption threshold, cap on consecutive nights, special exemptions, rate for your classification.

Good answer: all four variables are configurable, and the summary for the municipality is generated. Warning sign: "you set a fixed amount per person". With a fixed amount, you apply exemptions and the cap by hand — and since you became liable for the tax, every shortfall comes out of your pocket.

9. "Is there a channel manager? For which portals?"

This is the question to be ruthless about, because it is the one that varies most with how you sell.

If most of your revenue comes from Booking, Camping.info, ACSI or Pitchup, software without synchronisation forces double entry on you and the risk of overbooking. It is a knock-out requirement and there is nothing to discuss.

If instead you sell mostly direct, it is a secondary matter — and it is worth remembering that every direct booking is one commission less.

Good answer: "yes, with these portals, syncing every X minutes, included in the fee / costs X". Acceptable answer: "no, we don't have it". Warning sign: "we can integrate with all the main portals", with no names, no frequency, no price. That is the polite way of saying no.

Questions about the relationship, not the software

10. "Is the data mine? How do I take it with me?"

This is the question that measures the balance of power, and it has to be asked before signing, not at the first disagreement.

Good answer: a complete export, in a readable format, that you can obtain yourself without asking permission. Warning sign: "we can prepare an export on request". Translation: the cost of leaving will be their main argument at renewal time.

11. "What costs money on top of the fee?"

Have the list written down, not told to you.

The items that appear after signing, in order of frequency:

extra modules for features that seemed included
a percentage commission on direct bookings
a cost per additional user, for when you hire two seasonal staff in August
a cost for the initial setup
a cost for connecting to the access system, if you have one
a fee increase when you cross a pitch-count threshold

Good answer: a price that depends on one variable only — how many pitches you manage — and everything else included. Warning sign: a menu of modules. Not because it is dishonest, but because it will force you to decide every year whether you can afford a feature you need.

12. "Who answers on 14 August at seven in the evening?"

Do not ask whether there is support: ask who, when and how fast.

Campground software is judged on ten days a year. If on 14 August the barrier will not open or the booking engine throws an error, a ticket with a "within two working days" response is not support.

Good answer: a channel that answers in high season, with declared response times, and a person who knows your configuration. Warning sign: "open a ticket on the portal". Ask what the average response time is in August, and if they do not know, you have your answer.

Question number thirteen, the one that counts

At the end of the demo, say this sentence:

"Let's do it again with my rate card and my pitch types."

Send last season's rate card and the list of pitches by type, and ask for a second meeting where they configure them in front of you.

An hour on your own data is worth ten hours of presentation. That is where it comes out that your mixed type does not fit, that your municipality has a rule the system cannot express, that your three weeks of special prices turn into three separate rate cards.

And it is also where you see the other half: how willing that supplier is to work on your case. Anyone who tells you "no need, it works the same" is already telling you what support will be like in six months.

Our own answers, for fairness

It would be unfair to publish a list of questions without answering it.

Types, seasons, prices per combination, availability by type, dragging on the planning board, fixed accommodation, seasonal guests, tourist tax per person with exemptions, automatic Alloggiati Web and ISTAT, fiscal receipts: they are there, in production.

Channel manager: no. We do not sync Booking, Camping.info, ACSI or Pitchup. It is under consideration, it is not promised. If you sell mostly through OTAs, today we are not the right choice for you — and we would rather tell you here than in week three.

Bar, shop and restaurant till: no. We manage the stay account, not the point of sale.

Full per-person pricing — a pitch rate plus adult and child rates by age band, car, electricity: in development. Today the price is per pitch type and per season, with the tourist tax calculated per person.

Price: it depends on how many pitches you manage, all features included, no commission on direct bookings. It is all on the pricing page.

Data export: it is yours, you take it with you whenever you want.

If after the twelve questions you want to ask a thirteenth, write to us. And if your rate card is complicated, so much the better: that is exactly the kind of demo we are interested in.