If you want to market a glamping resort property well, the first thing to stop doing is marketing it like a hotel.
That sounds obvious now, but the industry did not get here slowly and thoughtfully. It got here fast. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. By that point, there were already more than 118,000 cases across 114 countries. In the months that followed, public health guidance repeatedly pushed people away from shared indoor spaces and toward lower-risk outdoor settings. Archived CDC guidance said people were less likely to be infected during outdoor activities than indoor ones, and in August 2020 the CDC was still warning that travel increased your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19.
That tension is where Glamping began to boom. People still wanted to go somewhere. They still needed rest, escape, and a little relief from being trapped inside. But traditional hospitality was under pressure, travel rules were changing constantly, and many destinations layered on quarantine orders and restrictions that made normal lodging demand harder to capture. In Maine, for example, April 2020 guidance told certain out-of-state visitors to refrain from travel. In Montana, non-essential out-of-state travelers were required to quarantine for 14 days before participating in non-essential activity.
At the same time, outdoor participation surged. Outdoor Industry data found that 53 percent of Americans age 6 and older participated in outdoor recreation in 2020, the highest rate on record, with 7.1 million more Americans participating than the year before. By 2021, the outdoor participant base had grown 6.9 percent since the pandemic began. Traditional hotels, meanwhile, were getting crushed in key markets. An American Hotel & Lodging Association analysis from 2020 said urban hotel revenues were down 78 percent in July, while travelers were choosing drive-to destinations, smaller markets, beaches, and outdoor spaces.
So no, glamping was not invented by COVID. But COVID absolutely accelerated the category, expanded its audience, and shoved outdoor hospitality into the mainstream faster than its messaging had time to mature. That is where a lot of the confusion still comes from today.
But when it came to the messaging, that early momentum started creating its own confusion.
When operators had to figure out how to market a glamping resort property fast, the most familiar model was traditional hospitality. So the language followed. Luxury. Premium linens. Elevated amenities. Curated comfort. Seamless service. Those things are not wrong. They are just incomplete.
Because a cliff dwelling, safari tent, dome, treehouse, or cabin in the middle of nowhere is not a hotel with better scenery. It is a nature-based stay with extraordinary comforts layered into an environment that is still very much alive.
And when the message leads with hotel language, guests arrive with hotel expectations.
That is how you end up with complaints that sound absurd until you realize the marketing created them. The frogs are too loud. The birds start too early. There are stink bugs in the tent. The silence feels unsettling. The experience is being reviewed against an indoor, controlled, back-of-house-supported standard that remote outdoor hospitality was never built to meet.
After two years spent helping grow a glamping resort, I had a realization I probably should have had sooner. I even wrote on LinkedIn that I used to think glamping had to feel like a hotel. Then I stayed at The Canyon at Pond Creek, a cliff dwelling in Tennessee, and suddenly I saw the whole thing differently.
There were bugs.
The wind was loud.
Nature did not ask for permission to exist around me.
And yet, I still had hot water, a real shower, a stocked kitchen, and a hot tub under an untouched sky.
That combination is not normal. It is extraordinary.
That is the context guests need. Because when you market a glamping resort property, what you are really selling is contrast. Wild setting, thoughtful comfort. Remote location, intentional design. Exposure to nature, without requiring someone to sleep in a damp tent and earn character development the hard way.
The problem is not that guests want comfort. Of course they do. The problem is that many listings and websites explain the comfort and skip the context.
“This is an immersive nature stay, not a sealed indoor environment.”
“You may hear wildlife, wind, rain, frogs, or birds.”
“You are in a remote setting, so the experience includes the rhythms of the outdoors.”
“We provide meaningful comfort, not total control over nature.”
That is not lowering the standard. That is clarifying the product.
One of the most damaging things operators do when they market a glamping resort property is make the work look effortless.
But remote outdoor hospitality is not effortless.
There is no back hallway.
No mystery maintenance team behind the wall.
No city infrastructure doing half the job for you.
Just people building something beautiful in places most would not even attempt.
That matters because appreciation rises when guests understand what is actually involved. Water systems in remote places. Cleaning between stays in outdoor conditions. Weather shifts. Wildlife. Pest management that is realistic, not magical. Staff coverage in places where “running to the store” is not a ten-minute errand.
If your brand hides all of that, guests only see the polished result. Then the minute nature shows up, it feels like failure instead of reality.
And honesty, they don’t want to be sold an idea or be convinced to buy into a cause that feels more like a marketing tactic than a real movement. Instead, they want to see real people, with real stories, living real life. This is why movements and brands that focus on authenticity resonate far more than those that attempt to manipulate the masses with flashy campaigns.
The industry narrative has often treated nature like set design.
Pretty view. Nice backdrop. Something to soften the edges of “luxury.”
But in glamping, nature is not the wallpaper. It is the main character.
That means your messaging should stop apologizing for it.
The bugs are not always a brand problem.
The sounds are not always a service problem.
The weather is not always a guest experience failure.
Sometimes those things are the experience.
Rebecca Maffeis said it well in the LinkedIn thread: “Roughing it builds grit. Glamping builds access.” That is such a smart distinction. It gives people a more comfortable entry point into the outdoors, without pretending the outdoors will behave like a hotel corridor.
That is the lane. Not sanitized nature. Accessible nature.
When you market a glamping resort property with hotel-coded language, you may get more clicks. But you also invite more mismatch. And mismatch is expensive.
It shows up in complaints, refunds, review damage, staff burnout, and owner heartbreak. It is hard enough to run these properties without also fighting expectations your own marketing planted.
The better strategy is not to soften the experience until everyone can say yes.
It is to articulate it clearly enough that the right guest says absolutely.
That means your best marketing might sound more like this:
Come here if you want stillness.
Come here if you want immersion.
Come here if you want comfort in the wild, not separation from it.
Come here if you can appreciate the effort it takes to make remote feel beautiful.
That kind of copy may repel a few people. Good. That is what positioning is supposed to do.
Try this shift:
Less “luxury in nature.”
More “immersive outdoor stay with elevated comforts.”
Less “flawless escape.”
More “beautiful, comfortable, real-world nature experience.”
Less “everything you expect from a hotel.”
More “everything you need to enjoy nature without roughing it.”
Less “private paradise.”
More “remote stay designed to help you experience the outdoors more comfortably.”
That one change can improve guest fit, reduce complaint friction, and help the whole category mature.
Because the truth is, glamping does not need better camouflage.
It needs better storytelling.
The outdoor boom was real. National Park Service visitation hit 297.1 million visits in 2021, up 60 million from 2020 as parks reopened more fully, and outdoor participation stayed elevated even after many indoor restrictions eased.
That tells me this category is not a blip. But if it wants long-term trust, it cannot keep borrowing hotel language for a product that is fundamentally different.
Glamping is not lesser hospitality.
It is harder hospitality.
And the brands that get that will be the ones confident enough to say so.