Lake properties and the season
Lake Garda is split between three territories: the Brescia shore in Lombardy, the Verona shore in Veneto and the northern tip in Trentino. All around the lake there are large campsites, often with pitches, mobile homes, swimming pools and restaurants, alongside family hotels, residences and apartments.
The season usually runs from April to October, peaking in summer. A large share of guests come from abroad, notably from German-speaking countries, and book well ahead. Almost all revenue is earned in a few months, while maintenance, investments and part of the staff cost weigh on the closed months too.
Many lake businesses have grown over time: a campsite that added a hotel, a family running several properties through different companies. In these cases each company's statutory accounts are not enough to see which activity earns money and which does not.
What matters most on Lake Garda
- Campsite KPIs: revenue and margin per pitch and per rental unit, occupancy by type, and services (pool, restaurant, shop) read as departments.
- Rental units and pitches kept apart: mobile homes and bungalows have very different costs and investment needs from pitches, and it pays to see the margin of each.
- A seasonal budget built while closed, with forecasts updated from May onwards based on bookings.
- Seasonal payroll cost per department and per occupied unit, to compare one season with the next.
- Groups with several properties: allocation of staff, utilities and overheads between campsites, hotels and companies under the same owner.
USALI was designed for hotels but adapts well to campsites: pitches, rental units and services become separate departments, and GOP is read month by month with the same rules for every property in the group.
How I work on Lake Garda
The first meeting is free and without obligation: at your premises if the property is in Lombardy, so on the Brescia shore; online on Microsoft Teams for properties on the Verona shore and in Trentino. I work on exports from the software you already use (accounting and booking system), set up the restatement once, then deliver monthly reports with a review meeting.
The process is on the USALI method page and the services on the Services page. For campsites there is a dedicated guide and a pitch and unit calculator; if you run several properties, see the guide to multi-property groups.