Outdoorsy is rolling out significant changes to how add-ons and amenities work on their platform. If you’re feeling frustrated or concerned about how this affects your pricing structure and profitability, you’re not alone.
What’s Changing
Required Standard Amenities (Must Be Included Free)
Starting now, these items must be provided at no additional charge:
- Linens & Towels: Sheets, blankets, pillows, and towels for your RV’s full occupancy
- Basic Kitchen Kit: Pots, pans, utensils, plates, cups, and silverware
- Basic Consumables: Toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, and simple cleaning supplies
- Leveling Blocks: Standard equipment for site setup
- Filled Water Tank: Fresh water tank must be full at pickup
These can no longer be optional paid add-ons. So now, you must work the price that was being charged, into your nightly rate or prep fee.
Cleaning Fee Elimination
The separate “Cleaning Fee” is also gone. All cleaning and preparation costs must be consolidated into the “Prep Fee” that covers standard cleaning, sanitation, water filling (now required), and vehicle preparation.
What You Can Still Charge For
Optional add-ons are now only for the following items:
- Pet fees
- Propane refills
- Grills and BBQs
- Generators
- Bike racks
- Outdoor furniture
- Pop Up Tents
- Custom unique items (subject to quick review & approval)
What You Cannot Charge For
Standard booking components
- Service Fees, insurance, taxes, young driver fees, additional driver fees
Why Outdoorsy Is Making These Changes
Booking Abandonment Problem
It seems that Outdoorsy may have identified a pattern that they felt was hurting both hosts and the platform overall. Guests could have been abandoning bookings at a higher rate after seeing unexpected fees at checkout as well as inconsistencies with amenities. Which for some guests, can feel like a little bit of a bait-and-switch pricing experience.
Guest Trust Issue
When items like toilet paper or dish soap have additional fees, guests start to feel a little nickel and dimed. Which for some people can create a bit of skepticism and make them hesitant to book, even when the total pricing is competitive.
So while the costs incurred by the hosts are a challenge and there is additional labour that is required for washing and storing, having these amenities does differentiate the Outdoorsy rentals from large rental companies like Cruise America that routinely charge for these amenities.
And when guests see all-inclusive amenities from the beginning, they can more likely be motivated to complete the booking process and have a good experience overall. Meaning Outdoorsy and hosts potentially will lose less customers at checkout.
What to Do Right Now
Outdoorsy has offered a feedback form specifically for these changes. And they invite hosts to give their opinions.
According to comments made in some Facebook groups, some hosts have already been offering these amenities for free anyway, so for them, the policy change really won’t affect their business that much.
However, other hosts have opted to leave the platform altogether and either offer direct rentals using their own website and commercial insurance, while others have chosen to list on other platforms like RVshare or Rvezy.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re for or against the policy change, the good thing is that the RV rental industry is still growing, so no matter which path is taken, there is still demand for rentals and money to be made.
The bad thing is that RV owners might have a little more work to do and potentially take a dip in overall earnings.
But it seems that, the hosts who adapt quickly and optimize strategically will be the ones who succeed long-term.