Building a Booking System for an RV Resort

Why Custom Over Off-the-Shelf

The RV resort booking market has existing solutions — Campspot, Firefly, RoverPass — that handle reservations for campgrounds and RV parks. North TX RV Resort evaluated several of these before deciding to build custom. The reasons were specific.

First, the existing platforms charge per-booking transaction fees that compound quickly for a resort with high occupancy. A 3-5% fee on every booking adds up to thousands of dollars monthly that goes to the booking platform rather than the resort. A custom system has development costs but no ongoing transaction fees beyond payment processing.

Second, the existing platforms impose their own booking flow, which may not match the resort's operations. North TX RV Resort has a specific intake process — guests select a site type, review available dates, provide their RV dimensions, and submit a deposit. The commercial platforms offered similar flows but with enough differences that the front desk staff would need to work around the system rather than with it.

Third, the resort wanted a single platform that handled not just bookings but also housekeeping, guest communications, and administrative reporting. The commercial booking platforms focus on the reservation — everything else requires separate tools. A custom build could integrate all of these into a unified admin platform.

The Booking Data Model

An RV resort's booking model has subtleties that a hotel booking system does not address. The primary bookable unit is a site — a physical space with hookups for an RV. Sites have types (full hookup, partial hookup, pull-through, back-in) and size constraints (maximum RV length and width). A booking must match a site type to an RV's specifications, not just to a date range.

The data model centers on three entities: Sites, Bookings, and Guests. A Site has a type, a location within the resort, physical dimensions, amenities (50-amp power, water, sewer, WiFi), and a rate. A Booking connects a Guest to a Site for a date range, with a status (pending, confirmed, checked-in, checked-out, cancelled). A Guest has contact information, RV details (year, make, model, length), and billing information.

Availability is calculated per-site per-day rather than as a simple count. Unlike a hotel where any room of a given type is interchangeable, RV sites have specific characteristics — some guests prefer a particular site because of its location, shade, or proximity to amenities. The booking system allows guests to request a specific site or to book by type and let the system assign a site.

The availability query joins the Sites table with the Bookings table, filtering for sites that have no overlapping bookings for the requested date range and that meet the guest's RV size requirements. This query is straightforward with proper indexing on the booking dates and site type columns, running in under 50 milliseconds even during peak search periods.

Deposit Collection With Stripe

North TX RV Resort requires a deposit at the time of booking, with the balance due at check-in. This split-payment model is common in hospitality but adds complexity to the payment flow.

The deposit is collected through Stripe at the time of booking confirmation. A PaymentIntent is created for the deposit amount — typically one night's rate — and the guest's card is charged. The remaining balance is captured at check-in using the same card on file, or the guest can pay with a different method.

Cancellation policies interact with the deposit. Bookings cancelled more than 72 hours before the arrival date receive a full deposit refund. Bookings cancelled within 72 hours forfeit the deposit. The system enforces this policy automatically — the cancellation handler checks the time delta between the cancellation and the arrival date and either processes a Stripe refund or marks the deposit as non-refundable.

This automated enforcement replaced a manual process where the front desk had to remember the cancellation policy, calculate the timing, and manually process refunds through a separate payment terminal. The Stripe integration patterns I had developed for other projects made this implementation straightforward.

Calendar and Rate Management

RV resort rates are not static. Weekend rates differ from weekday rates. Holiday weekends command premium pricing. Monthly rates offer significant discounts for long-term stays. Seasonal rates adjust for high and low demand periods.

The rate engine in the booking system supports layered pricing rules. The base rate is set per site type. Date-based overrides apply higher rates for specific date ranges (holidays, events). Length-of-stay discounts apply percentage reductions for bookings that exceed a threshold (30+ days for monthly rates). These rules compose — a 30-day booking over a holiday weekend uses the monthly discount on most nights and the holiday rate on the specific holiday dates.

The calendar view in the admin interface shows occupancy by site and by date, with color coding for booking status. This view lets the resort manager see at a glance which sites are available, which are booked, and which guests are currently on-site. The calendar also shows maintenance blocks — periods when a site is unavailable due to housekeeping or repair work.

Rate management is performed through the admin interface, where the manager can set base rates, create date-based overrides, and configure length-of-stay discounts. Changes take effect immediately for new bookings without affecting existing confirmed reservations — a principle that prevents the awkward situation of a guest's confirmed rate changing after they have already committed.