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Parents want to come to summer camp with their kids
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Did the subject line of this email send cold chills down your spine? I get it. The whole point of sleepaway camp is independence. Kids away from parents. Facing challenges on their own. Growing in ways they can’t when mom and dad are nearby. So the idea of parents on the property feels like it undermines everything. But I’ve been running market research on this, and the numbers are hard to ignore. What Families Are Telling UsI surveyed 102 affluent families from the metro New York City area (household income $100K+) about their summer plans. When asked about traditional sleepaway camp, 42% said yes, 39% said no, 19% were considering. Then I introduced a hybrid concept that came from a conversation with another camp director. Kids in cabins having the traditional sleepaway experience. Parents in separate accommodations on the same property. Higher-end amenities for the adults. Good coffee. Yoga. Reliable Wi-Fi so they can work remotely. 62% said yes. The “considering” group barely moved. The “no” group got cut in half. It would seem the no’s converted directly to yeses. Why This Tracks With Travel SportsNone of this surprises me when I look at what’s happening with travel sports. Families doing travel sports are signing up for skill development, yes. But they’re also signing up for the weekends away together. The team dinners. The hotel breakfast buffets. Extending the tournament trip by a day to explore a new city. The sport is the reason for the trip. The togetherness is what keeps families coming back year after year, spending thousands of dollars and burning weekends year-round. Parents want shared experiences. They want to be part of the thing their kid is doing, not just paying for it from a distance. Travel sports figured this out. The hybrid camp model hits the same impulse. And remote work changed the math. Five years ago, a parent couldn’t take a week at camp without burning PTO. Now? Laptop, decent Wi-Fi, and they’re working poolside while their kid is at archery. The logistics finally work. My Honest ReactionThe youth development part of my brain still resists this. Kids need adversity. They need to figure things out without a parent nearby to fix it. That’s where the growth happens. I don’t want camps to lose that. But I also know this isn’t about what I think is ideal. Families are telling us what they want. We can ignore it or we can figure out how to meet them there. The Real OpportunityThis could create new sleepaway campers who wouldn’t have come otherwise. For families who keep saying no to overnight camp, this could be the entry point. The kid sleeps in a cabin. Makes friends. Does the campfire. Gets a taste of independence. Meanwhile, the parent watches it work. Sees the kid thriving. Next summer, sending them for two weeks on their own feels possible. The hybrid week becomes the on-ramp. I posted this research on LinkedIn recently and it sparked a lot of conversation. Here’s the original post and the data: If we’re not connected there, feel free to add me. I share research like this regularly. Worth Watching For camps with an extra week to fill, or camps trying to reach families who keep saying no, this model deserves attention. Sincerely, Senior Consultant at Immersive1st Learn more about Immersive1st's Approach |
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