Taupō holiday park’s popularity leads to complaints from visitors

Source: Radio New Zealand

Lake Taupo Holiday Resort is being overwhelmed by its own popularity, according to one camping enthusiast.

A post on the NZ Fun Adventures Facebook page about the resort led to hundreds of comments, many complaining of not being able to get in touch with the park to discuss bookings or query payments.

One was Sam Barnfield, who said he had a great vacation at Lake Taupo Holiday Park last year.

But months after the visit he was still struggling to get a refund he said he was owed and he now regretted the visit.

“When you try and ring Lake Taupo Holiday Resort they never answer their phones, they don’t respond to emails, they say one thing and it never happens and now we are $170 out of pocket because they still haven’t put the money back in our account,” he said.

The park had been developed, owned and run for more than 25 years by locals Lloyd and Trish Lusty.

Last October it was sold to Australian property group Hampshire Holiday Parks – which seemed to have had an impact on Barnfield’s experience.

“They are saying that due to the new management systems that they are slowly catching up on new processes and bits and pieces, but as you have seen in that thread on Facebook, I’m not the only one who’s been affected by this,” Barnfield said.

Amanda Schoeman also posted on the NZ Fun Adventures Facebook thread.

She had just booked to camp at the resort for her fourth stay in five years and said communicating with the park was harder this time.

“Previously you could pay $5 extra per night to have a designated stand assigned to you, but they don’t have that option [online] anymore, so it was quite a struggle to get through to them by telephone when we wanted to book,” she said.

Schoeman noticed they had offered a Boxing Day discount sale and thought perhaps that drove up the numbers trying to talk to the resort at an already busy time.

Despite the recent issues, she still recommended the resort.

“You will have an absolute blast of a time,” she said.

Jono Collins said after seeing the problems popping up online, he rang the resort. A message asked him to email which he did, and after 24 hours he received a call back.

“Obviously they are very keen to get on top of [things], they gave me a bit of insight into the staffing support they have in place, which is a huge amount, far more then I imagined,” he said.

Collins thought Lake Taupo Holiday Resort was probably one of the country’s busiest holiday parks, especially at this time of year.

He compared going to a campground in the Christmas/New Year’s period to going to a supermarket on Christmas Eve.

“You should be expecting checkouts to be busy, car parks to be full, no decent fruit left on the shelf, it’s a busy time, the amount of business will dramatically go up,” he said.

The busy season required adjusted expectations and patience, Collins said.

That did not help Barnfield though, who was still waiting for his refund.

“There’s not much more we can do … it’s just frustrating, we are at their mercy really,” he said.

RNZ asked Lake Taupo Holiday Resort for an interview to discuss how things had gone this summer and Barnfield’s case.

In a statement, park manager Sashah Macleod said they were in discussions directly with guests and would not be commenting.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand