Ratios

As AD says, anyone can just drive a 3.5t van no problem...and for every caravanner that moves to a MH that's one more MH AND one less caravanner...

easy to see the balance moving faster than if MH were all new to the hobby.

either way, despite the name change, the club doesn't offer the versatility in pitch choice that many MH are used to 'wherever they tour'...

we've just had four nights on a commercial and I could have had a grass pitch or a HS or even a premium HS pitch, and on any of these I could have EHU or not..no meters just a yes/no managed on trust...yet still have access to water, waste etc...

I chose grass, no EHU plus service bollard at £50 for four nights...(members rates)...im sure the club are trying to 'understand' what motorhoming is all about but I fear there's still a long way to go beyond a name change.

in a few years time we will still be the Caravan Club with sites just covered in motorhomes.🚐

Who cares how you use your MH once you have pitched up on site. There's only one right way to tour and that's the way that's right for you. Enjoy your break and stop worrying about what other people do.

Caravan Club has welcomed campervans and Motorhomes since we first used them, and that was back in 1983. You had to be inspected if you had something that wasn’t obviously a campervan, but we were by no means the only campervan or MH on the sites at the time, but very much a minority. Since then, we have always seen campers and MHs on Club Sites, but the last ten years or so saw a slow but increasingly quickening take up of MH’s in particular as they became more available, and ex caravanners started to to look at the easier/alternative to towing and setting up. We know quite a few who have downscaled to small MHs/PVCs because of the ease and reduction in lifting&handling required. Things like E-bikes give another dimension to getting around easily. 

Club Sites aren’t always a good location for big MHs. Historically, many are away from towns and villages, so if you don’t want to use your MH daily, (and many don’t) then you need to find an alternative way of getting around and about. I don’t think some Club Sites have the best supporting infrastructure either for MHs, although the Club is trying. Some pitches can be short but wide, not that much of an issue for caravan and tow car, but not so easy for a very big, long MH. It’s taken an age, and a lot of asking to get drive over waste points installed, and some are not ideally placed even now. 

I personally don’t think the Club offers a good deal for touring MHs, fine if you just use one as a caravan on long stays, but the prices charged for a one night stop over, where you might only be on site 14 hours, we find poor vfm. The Club network is still primarily set up for long staying caravans more than anything else, which isn’t a problem if you are happy with the prices and other aspects. No doubt things will continue to evolve as do holiday trends.

I also agree with TTDA's post....short term touring on a CAMC site is mightily expensive for what many MH make use of...

while we don't often take the van off site in the UK, we do cycle most days and to call in at a site (any site) and be asked for £35-45 for a days parking isn't VFM.

we park, we remove two chairs from the garage, perhaps have a coffee and then we're off....we return, we load the bikes and chairs into the garage and we might be away next morning...

we take up one third of the space on a pitch that most caravanners seem to require...we don't do any banging or hammering for awnings, windbreaks, dog corrals etc...we don't have a car/caravan/awning...we only need a small pitch.

For those who stay for weeks and make use of the facilities (we may not even do that on a short stopper) it could be said they were getting better 'value' but even a pitch and a shower still seems expensive.

If sites offered small, cheap pitches for one/two night stayers I might be (a little bit) more interested.

some sites do offer different sized pitches, different surface choices, EHU or not etc, for varying prices...we were at one such site this week...sometimes this could work for us...but, as PD says, not with the club which has decided on its course of more of the same.

other than MH waste points (again, as TTDA mentions, some of these aren't particularly easy to get onto and keep roadways free for others) can anyone say what the club does now to be more in tune with motorhoming than it did prior to the name change?

a quick trawl of motorhoming sites like MHFUN would give the Club hierarchy loads of clues as to why CAMC isn't popular with FUN members...

"Also it says that MH/campervans have an older age range (I assume compared to caravans) and less likely to take children with them, also they tend to move around more and take more shorter UK breaks over more months of the year and are twice as likely to travel overseas."

If the club 'understands' these snippets of info re MH owners, I wonder what changes to the offering they're making to synchronise with these behaviours?

less kids, move on more often, more but shorter breaks, better understanding from abroad about what MH 'heaven' is all about.....

all these things, which have been mentioned many times, highlight the differences in the way MHers tour when (in general) compared to caravanners.

...surely they need, less space (less kids), smaller, cheaper, fast turnaround pitches and top notch MHSP which cause no impact to others. They haven't mentioned EHU but stopping for just a night or two reduces greatly that requirement.

im not sure the change in ratio of those visiting the club is a 'great achievement', it may just be that the same folk are heading back to the same club sites but in their new MH having swapped from a caravan...?..

I don’t think the Club are doing that much wrong to be honest, just re positioning themselves in a difficult market, trying to capture as much of the disposable income as they can, and looking at new customers, rather than catering primarily for what they have in terms of Members. It only grates with us because we paid a Membership fee for the old no deposits, shorter should you need to cancel system, which was good given our personal circumstances (we only had to cancel once), but it’s still worth it to us for the CLs. Deposits aren’t a problem, we pay those for cottages, etc…
I will say though that the Club isn’t very good re communications to its Members, and there can be a deal of “spin” and silence around trying to get decent answers to some queries. The new booking system launch was a tech and communications disaster, and given all the special offers, changing of some T&C’s, they don’t appear to have hit all their possible projected pitch take up. Customers like clarity, and all these changing prices, special offers, time limited sales need a bit of wading through. 

I have no doubts, many will be happy still with the Club, despite the name change, despite the price increases, despite the new T&C’s. For others, like us, it’s a big market if you want to shop around.