The Bare Oaks Blog click here did a very good analysis as too why Glen Echo nudist Park outside of Toronto, Canada closed.
Here are some highlights from their blog:
...The fact is that I am sad that 54 years of naturist history is coming to such an abrupt end...
It has certainly generated a lot of press. See:
Toronto Star August 28
Metro News August 28
Toronto Sun August 29
CTV News September 2
From a business standpoint, the loss of a naturist park in the Toronto area is a bad thing. We are not in competition with each other. There are at least 400,000 people in the Greater Toronto Area, according to a survey by the Federation of Canadian Naturists, who are interested in naturism. If I add up all the clubs in the Toronto area, I only get to less than 5,000 members. Even if I assume that another 5,000 people are visitors and not members, that still leaves 390,000 people unaccounted for. If we assume a huge margin of error (which is unlikely given the methodology) I am still left wondering where the other 90,000 people are.
In my opinion, they are not visiting naturist clubs because of a lack of awareness. When I talk about Bare Oaks to my neighbours I frequently get a surprised reaction that "there are places like that in Ontario." ...If we managed to get another 10,000 people participating in naturism, we would all be completely overwhelmed!
...each club is truly unique. While we all share the naturist/nudist label, the application and interpretation of the philosophy varies greatly in each club. Some clubs offer a more urban experience while others are more nature-oriented. Some are passionately naturist while others are more clothing-optional."
The blog makes many good points. First is awareness. We got an e-mail from a couple who said they just got back to England after a 3 week long holiday in Palm Springs. They just learned that we were in Palm Springs and were so sad that they didn't know there were urban naturist resorts in the US. They thought they were only in Spain and France.
I spend so much time promoting nudism as does FCN and AANR, yet this couple didn't know nudist resorts exist in the US.
Sadly because marketing budgets are small in the nudist world, we don't have the marketing power that the big hotel chains have.
The Bare Oaks Blog says if they had another 10,000 people participating in Toronto, they would be overwhelmed. I figure if we had another 50 couples booking a week long stay, then I could afford to put a big flat screen TV in every room and not raise rates. That's just an additional 4 couples a month staying for a week.
I bust my butt on marketing our resort, but I know it's definitely not going to happen this year getting 4 additional couples a month. This year we probably have the highest occupancy rate of ALL hotels in Palm Springs, but it will probably be only our 2nd or 3rd best year of our 15 years in business. However, if next year we averaged an extra 4 couples per month booking rooms for a week or longer, then our guests would really be happy as we reinvest more money as a percent of sales in our resort than probably any other nudist resort in the US.
But, it sure would be nice though if 4 additional couples a month decided to support nudism in the US and stayed at our resort instead of supporting non nudist owned overpriced places in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Now if you want to take a fun vacation, give us a call at The Terra Cotta Inn clothing optional resort and spa located in sunny Palm Springs, CA.
We are the most mainstream nudist resort in the US and are perfect for couples trying topless or nude sunbathing for the first time. You don't even have to be a nudist to vacation with us.
Become our Facebook friend at http://facebook.com/terracottainn
Visit our site at http://sunnyfun.com
Follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/nudist_resorts
Hope to see you soon in sunny Palm Springs!
