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Penticton  

Winter RV trend growing

If you're planning on spending the winter in your RV and looking to do so in the South Okanagan, you probably won't have to look far.

Competition is growing among RV parks in the South Okanagan that are looking to attract winter campers — which is a growing business in the region, according to officials at several of those parks.

Those who spoke to Castanet on Friday said there are multiple driving factors.

Factors included the mild winter climate in the region compared to other parts of Canada, the relative availability of living in an RV — permanently or temporarily — and cheaper costs of spending the winter in Canada as opposed to travelling south.

Katrina Baptiste, the general manager at NK'Mip RV Park in Osoyoos, said her park has undertaken a massive expansion in the past five years to accommodate the growing business.

She said the park added 75 sites in 2012, giving them 165 sites available in the winter — noting that, in an average year, 150 of those sites are occupied for the entire winter season.

"We've definitely seen an increase, because we're still full and we have twice as many sites available."

Baptiste estimated that 90 per cent of those occupants in the winter are retired snowbirds, and noted there are young working families or couples that live there year-round.

Most of the snowbirds, she said, are from the Prairies and places with harsh winters, noting the better climate in the region is a draw.

"A lot of people said there's a 20-degree difference in temperature from where they're coming from."

Jamie Cox, the resort manager at Gallagher Lake RV Resort just north of Oliver, said the park wasn't open in the winter when he joined on in the spring of 2014.

But with a growing demand, Cox said the park has opened 34 of 151 sites to operate during the cold season.

"Last week, I did some quick research on eight resorts from Penticton to Osoyoos. And everybody's doing winter now," Cox said.

He added that he noticed a considerable decrease in monthly rates at many RV parks that now operate year-round as opposed to seasonally.

"Everybody's come down a couple of hundred dollars. There's a competition out there now that wasn't there a year ago."

That competition is spoken for as well at Holiday Hills RV Park in Penticton. There, operator Dan Selles said the park with about 90 sites, which only opened this year, is close to three-quarters full currently.

Many of those occupants, Selles said, intend to stay year-round.

"We get all of the demographics. We have the retirees, the snowbirds, and we also have the working-class as well... And the job market out here is bringing people here that I would say wouldn't of happened a couple of years ago."



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