In a Vegas trailer park, Airstream and KOA form a ‘recessionship’

Driven by troubled times and eager to find a silver lining, the Airstream trailer people and the KOA campground people have struck up a new relationship. Not only are they spending nights together, they’d like us to join them.

In recent months, Airstream has sold an armada of 25 shiny silver trailers to Kampgrounds of America, including 10 to the Las Vegas KOA campground near the Circus Circus Hotel, within walking distance of the Strip.

Now the KOA is hoping travelers will come — out of nostalgia, or appreciation for cool design, or frugality, or just plain curiosity — and sleep in them.

Cost: Rates for the brand-new units start as low as $45 nightly (that’s the special rate through Feb. 28), and each of the 25-foot-long Vegas Airstreams sleeps up to four people on one queen bed and two twins. Units features bathrooms, kitchen, plates and linens.

“We’ve already sold out Valentine’s Day weekend,” says Greg Dunagan, manager of the KOA Las Vegas site, which opened up its first Airstream on Dec. 23.

This new campaign, a spokesman says, will give travelers a chance to rent those sleek silver trailers in at least three U.S. cities, and may later expand. (The KOA-Airstream sites are campgrounds owned by the Billings, Mont.-based Kampgrounds of America Inc. Most of the roughly 450 KOA sites in North America are owned and operated by franchisees.)

You have to imagine that lately Airstream is having some trouble selling those 25-foot luxury trailers, which typically sell for about $65,000. And clearly, some among KOA’s hundreds of campgrounds in North America have enough room to do a little experimenting. As KOA’s Dunagan says, “We’ve seen the same effects that everybody else has.”

So comes this chance for travelers to sleep in a handsome retro icon without having to drag one up the road, or park it, or even deal with the hookups.

Besides Las Vegas, Airstream rentals are earmarked for KOA campgrounds in Sugarloaf Key, Fla. (which already has units renting); and Bar Harbor, Maine, which will open up its trailers in the spring. Though no California venues have yet been named, an Airstream spokesman said, several more cities are expected to join the list before summer.

Of course, a trendy word is required for these kinds of hard-times alliances. (Think of Bank of America taking over Countrywide Bank, or the U.S. government propping up automakers, or all the estranged husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends out there who can’t afford to move apart.) “Locationship” isn’t quite right (and, as many in the entertainment industry can attest, it’s already taken.)

So let us now unveil… recessionship.

Surely this move shows how frantic hospitality companies are to woo customers outside their usual corner of the marketplace. But keep in mind, trailer-tolerant bargain hunters, that many KOA sites have been renting out cabins and other facilities for years. Also, the KOA people are not the first to look at a trailer and see a potential hotel room.

The Shady Dell RV Park/Campground in the bohemian, historic mining town of Bisbee, Ariz., has been renting out nine restored old Airstreams and other four-wheeled vintage accommodations (at least one dating back to 1949) for years. (Its motto: “Midcentry Modernism is alive and well at The Shady Dell.”)

In the far-flung contemporary art capital of Marfa, Texas, alt-hotelier Liz Lambert (who runs the Hotel San Jose in Austin) has been working for a few years on a not-yet-completed trailer-park-yurt-refuge-hipster-haven called El Cosmico.

And Newport Dunes, the 100-acree bayfront Newport Beach RV resort and marina that celebrated its 50^th anniversary last year, has 23 rental cottages ($85-$360) along with its 400 spaces for RVs and tent campers.

– Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Airstream]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 11:01 am by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under California, Deals, Family & Kids, Las Vegas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.