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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, Kansas City, MO, USA

Increasing the length-of-stay increases parking requirements

Over the past few years, our CEO, Randy White, has worked with several agritourism farms that ran out of parking and showed them how to modify their layouts to increase parking.

Increased attendance, especially during peak days and hours, will increase parking requirements. However, even if peak attendance doesn't change, parking needs can increase.

Adding attractions and activities can increase the length-of-stay, which in turn will increase the required parking. Here's a simple example to show the impact.

Let's say at peak times, a farm is getting 350 guests per hour, and the length-of-stay is two hours.

Parking for 350 guests arriving every hour over 2 hours might require 200 parking spaces (this will vary depending on the composition of the groups, whether families or adults). In addition to guest parking, let's assume we need 25 staff parking spaces. The total parking requirement is now 225 spaces.

Let's assume the farm adds pig races and a giant hay pyramid, increasing the length-of-stay to 2.5 hours. We still have 100 guest cars coming each hour, but now 100 cars will be parking for 2.5 hours instead of 2.0 hours, so all those parking spaces don't free up for the next cars as fast. This results in now needing 250 guest plus 25 staff parking spaces for a total of 275 parking spaces, a 22%, 50-space increase.

Many farms have underestimated future parking needs, which has restricted their ability to grow their business. One thing our company does when helping agritourism farms develop their master plans is to ensure there is adequate room to expand parking to accommodate increased attendance and longer stays.

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