Municipality of Avers (GR): "Create offers instead of sending campers away"

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From the report from Tele- and Radio Südostschweiz

The municipality of Avers in Graubünden has been using "Parkn'Sleep" for the management of camper pitches for two months. The story began with the municipal council of Avers, which was desperately looking for a solution to the increasing number of wild campers. "People were simply camping everywhere. There was no actual ban," says Kurt Patzen, mayor of Avers, to Radio Südostschweiz. Robert Garbade, member of the municipal council, agrees with him: "Some campers simply relieved themselves somewhere in the countryside. When the snow melted in spring, the extent of the problem became apparent. Feces on cow pastures are problematic."

To the radio contribution / From min '23

To the TV report / From min '2 ''20

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Create offers instead of sending people away

In principle, camping was not part of the tourism concept of the municipality of Avers until recently. But: "There were more and more campers. Simply sending the guests away was out of the question for us. On the contrary. We wanted to create an offer for the campers." This is where the Lucerne start-up Parkn'Sleep came into play. Together with the TCS mobility club and the Graubünden University of Applied Sciences, the start-up launched an app in the summer that allows campers to check in and out digitally. Without any advance booking.

"With the app, we want to move away from prohibition signs and towards official sites for campers," says Dany Gschwind, sales manager of the start-up. "We are all die-hard campers in the company. And we also noticed that wild camping was on the rise during the pandemic." Gschwind confirms that the collaboration with the municipality of Avers worked extremely well. Municipal president Patzen is also satisfied: "The experience so far has been surprisingly good. We've been working with the app for around two months and since then around 100 people have camped using it. I see that as a success."

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Stay overnight with just a few clicks

The app is easy to use, even for people with no prior digital knowledge, promises Gschwind. "We have a board that we make available to municipalities and parking space operators. It has a QR code on it. Guests can check in and out using this QR code. We can include individual fees such as visitor's tax for each parking space."

Despite its success, the municipality of Avers does not want to provide any more campsites. "We would rather expand the existing four pitches, mark them better and adapt them even more to the needs of our guests," says Garbade.

Content published by Südostschweiz.

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