Market Research on Camp Registration and Tech Expectations

Images courtesy of Amilia.

Through experience as a camp professional or maybe even as both a professional and a parent, you probably know a lot about the expectations of parents when it comes to how you run your camp, take registrations, and even how you make technology part of your parents and campers day-to-day.

Well, with our survey results, we’re here to either confirm what you’re thinking or bring in a fresh perspective to your thought process. Because in the end, the numbers don’t lie.

Context

We surveyed 300 parents in the United States via SurveyMonkey on September 27, 2022, to find out what their preferences were for their camp’s technology and registration process.

Here are some preliminary findings from the survey. Please note that there is much more data to share than could fit into this article. By the way, if you are already curious about how technology can help you run your camp and make registration more convenient for parents, get a personalized SmartRec demo.

Before we dive into the numbers, to help set the scene on how these parents qualify to be sharing their opinion, we established that 69% of survey respondents sent their kids to camp last year. On average within these households, there are two kids per household that are sent to camp.

Those who send their kids to camp, send their children to the following types of camps:

Surprising Findings About Registrations and Technology

1. Parents Want the Camp Registration Process to be Easy

Nearly 40% of respondents put ease of registration in their top three evaluation criteria when evaluating which camps to send their kids to. Of that number, 43 people put it as the most important evaluation criteria which ranked it the third most important after camp safety measures and type of camp.

2. There is Catch-Up Tech Work for Camps to do

Despite this preference from parents, our research showed that over 50% of people had to sign their child up via in-person or manual processes such as via paper forms or over the phone.

3. Evolving Your Registration Process Will Increase Participation

If you have a registration process that requires parents to be in-person or to pick up a phone, there’s a big chance that you are missing out on the opportunity to increase your participation. That’s because, when we asked parents, over 80% of the respondents agreed that they would sign their kids up to more activities if they could sign up online anytime.

More about the respondents

Parents who responded had at least one child or dependent in their household who attended a camp within the last year. 45% of respondents identify as men, while 55% of respondents identify as women. 98% of respondents used a mobile device to respond to the survey, while only 2% responded via desktop, displaying parent’s preference for mobile use. 60% of respondents were between the ages of 30-44. All regions of the United States were well represented, the only variance between being marginal.

See how you can run your camp smarter with tech and increase camper participation thanks to an eCommerce platform.