As Lou mentions, KOA's are franchises - and last summer I learned more detail on how all of that works. I was staying in a park that had used my SW for years. The original owner took the park back on August 1, and I handled the transition between the old and former owners. Was hoping they would continue to use my SW, and they did for several months, then decided to go KOA. Reason being, they needed to generate more income than the park currently was able to draw.
Unfortunately for me, KOA requires their parks use KOA software. It appeared pretty archaic as an old DOS program would display but it does what they want it to do, which is totally control the business, and the monies that come in. Here are some other things I learned during the transition:
o When a franchise application comes in to KOA, they send a rep to the park to do a survey and then present a list of what must be done before their app will be accepted. Items such a picnic table at each site, everything works at each site that is supposed to work - and, a game room for the kids. They want folk with kids to look to KOA when they have kids to be entertained.
o Once accepted, the owner and/or managers are flown to KOA headquarters for about 2 weeks of training - mostly on how they will be operating and how to grow their business.
o In addition to using my SW, the old owners had me build their website, which I also hosted. KOA would have nothing to do with that either. KOA provides their franchises with a website that is part of KOA.COM. They allowed my website to continue during the transition, but on my site I had to change the Reservations page link to the reservation page on the KOA site for that park. ALL reservations via website go thru KOA and require a deposit. If one calls the park direct for a reservation, a deposit is required. Once received via phone at the park, the reservation and deposit info are entered into the KOA SW.
o KOA software is not local to the park - but centralized on mini computers at their headquarters as is all the data associated with the SW. Everything is controlled by these centralized computer systems. All income from stays as well as all sales otherwise, such as propane or a bag of M&M's are entered into the system. If I recall, the KOA part of that is 10%.
o Pricing seemed to be mostly set by the park itself -- and that was based on a study of all pricing up and down the I5 between LA and Redding, CA. Would imagine KOA was involved there as well. The park continued to rent weekly and monthly sites. The weekly went up quite a bit as did the daily's whereas the monthly's were not so bad. I believe that was because they wanted to build that type of steady income. If the park does well, am sure those will also go up.
o Once the franchise is accepted, KOA decides what the new name for the park will be -- and will always end in KOA.
o As the summer wore down early last fall, the park had the game room in pretty good shape, the pool redone, a very strong Wi-Fi installed, and finalized cable TV at each site. In that short period of time, I witnessed a noticeable increase in the business and Kudos rendered by many that were staying there - especially those that had kids. I did photography for many events for the whole park that were happening about once a week or on holidays.
Anyway, the original owner is putting in everything recommended by KOA and has placed an excellent management team. So in this case, if $36/38 is OK vs. the $24 one would have paid before it became a KOA, this will be an increasingly nice park to do a short term stay. When I stay for a night while traveling -- I only need some electric and sometimes water and sewer, and a good price. However, as mentioned by others here, some want more, and will pay a few bucks more accordingly.