In South Carolina, there is a campground that has been reaping award after award. The Point South/Yemassee, South Carolina KOA Holiday has recently been named the Best Campground & RV Park in the Lowcountry by McClatchy Publishing’s Beaufort Gazette & Island Packet, but that’s just the beginning.
According to a press release, the KOA, owned by Bill and Barbara Olendorf and daughter Jennifer Mason for the past 40 years, has been a longtime jewel of Kampgrounds of America’s 500-plus park system in North America.
The Best Campground & RV Park in the Lowcountry Award is only one of the many the campground has received this year.
It has also received the 2022 KOA President’s Award and 2022 KOA Founder’s Award—only presented to KOA campgrounds that garner the very best review scores from KOA’s Quality Review Advisors as well as from KOA campers.
Also this year, the park has received TripAdvisor’s “Traveler’s Choice” Award for the eighth year in a row. The park had earlier earned TripAdvisor’s “Hall of Fame” status for achieving the Traveler’s Choice Award for more than five consecutive years.
The awards don’t end there. Lux Magazine for Hospitality named the Point South/Yemassee KOA Holiday as a top campground destination for the third straight year in 2022.
The magazine considers the Point South/Yemassee KOA Holiday “no longer an average campground” but instead has become “a hospitality-centric site that serves a target market that owns motorhomes or trailers and travels in them often.”
Awards the campground received did not only come pouring in this year. The KOA was named Jasper County’s Business of the Year for 2021; and, in 2016, was hailed KOA’s Campground of the Year.
Point South/Yemassee KOA is nestled in South Carolina’s Lowcountry between Savannah, Charleston, Hilton Head, and Beaufort.
The park has often led the way in campground innovation for the iconic KOA brand.
Along with its great location and surrounding attractions, the campground was among the first KOAs to add full-service, fully stocked deluxe cabins as well as unique accommodations like a real railroad caboose and Charleston Trolley cabin. There’s also a boutique shop and store and a bistro & coffee shop featuring locally sourced coffee, wine, and craft beer.
Owner Jennifer Mason summed up her guest service philosophy recently in an article in Hunt Brothers Pizza’s partner magazine that celebrated the campground’s 20-year partnership with the pizza brand.
“It is your reputation and that is what gives your customers trust in the brand and how a guest is going to be treated,” Mason said when discussing how closely she tracks guest comments on social media.
“If you don’t manage your online reputation, you are failing your business. Trust is easy to lose, hard to keep, and hard to get back.”
Featured image from Point South/Yemassee KOA Holiday.