MC Fireside Chats – April 12th, 2023

Brian: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Hopefully Cara Csizmadia will be joining us in a few minutes. She just messaged me and says she’s in a meeting. I [00:01:00] think Ruben’s still finishing his as well. He emailed Aari from Modern Campground and said he’s gonna pop in a few minutes too.

Super excited to have our recurring glamping episode happening here which you do once a month. We’re also missing Connor and I think Irene and I don’t know, maybe now we’re missing Zach, but I was gonna say Zach is here, so hopefully he’ll be back. He’s in Kansas City. Beautiful outside there.

There he is, popping back in. Okay. I was just welcoming everybody, Zach, and then you disappeared on us. And then we have our two special guests here skip Courtney and Angele Miller, who are gonna tell us about their respective glamping businesses. So we’re super excited to have both of you guys here.

Why don’t we, since we are missing all of our recurring guests, and maybe half of Zach, depending on what’s happening there in his trolley ride, why don’t we start with you guys? I’ve got a couple notes here for you, but you wanna briefly introduce yourselves and just tell us about your business? 

Angele: Hi everyone. It’s a pleasure to to be here with all of you today. So for me my name is Angele Miller and I’m a co-founder for Creekside r and r Glamping. We are [00:02:00] located in New Brunswick here in Canada and we have built a glamping resort that have some domes, some white dome structures.

It’s beside a creek river here. And we also have a new concept we just introduced this year called the meric cabins that we have built onsite. And we also have a Nordic spa and a meditation yoga center. We also have a lot of beautiful nature trails. We have canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, bad bikes.

So for all of that, fun stuff to do outdoors as well. 

Brian: Awesome. 

That sounds great. I want to definitely dive into that and talk more about it. Skip, do you wanna start or introduce yourself? 

Skip: No. I was ready to head to Canada and come visit Creekside. That sounds pretty amazing. It’s amazing.

Brian: To be fair, Canada is a little bit more beautiful, like we’re a little spoiled up here. So… 

Skip: I, it’s funny because if you told me five years ago that I’d be living in Alabama, I wouldn’t have told you were, full tilt bozo. But here we are and we think we’ve found one of the most beautiful spots in [00:03:00] Alabama.

I’m Skip Courtney and I’m co-owner with my wife Rhonda of the Destination Glamping Resort here right outside of Dadeville, Alabama. We’re on beautiful Sandy Creek, which runs into Lake Martin, which is a huge resort lake area that’s been tremendously popular here for decades and decades, really, since they built the dam and created the lake.

We sit on 104 acres. We have Sandy Creek, which, wraps up around from the east side of the property around the tip, and then all the way down the west side. So we have about a mile of creek frontage on one side and close to two thirds of a mile on the opposite side of the creek. Very cool, very private.

We have we are our safari tent glamping site, so we have big safari tents from Bush Tech Safari here in the us. They’re manufactured in South Africa by Canvas intent. Great company who’s been a business since the seventies. And we’re really..

Brian: …glamping show. They’re really nice. 

Skip: Yeah. Yeah.

That’s where I met them year four years ago in Denver. The, the first glamping show out [00:04:00] there, here in the States. We we only have four units, so we’re very exclusive. We have two one bedroom units and two two bedroom units. They sit. There are two bedroom units sit on 2100 square foot decks.

Each one has a seven by seven hot tub. Nice wood floors, tile showers, granite countertops, heat and air. My wife likes to call it Ritz Carlton in a canvas bag. It’s truly luxury lodging. But it’s done in a nature setting. We also have awesome trails run down the creek and up the ridge canoes, kayaks, you can get out to the lake.

We have relationships with a lot of the local businesses around here. We work with better bodies, massage. They come on site, do massages. We do private wine. We also have the Sandy Creek Lodge, which is where I’m sitting now. Overlook, overlooks the shoals and we utilize the property for for get togethers, brunches on Sunday.

We have a private wine cellar dining experience that we offer, and we’re just excited. We’ve been in business about a year and a half and looking forward to 2023 being even better than last year. 

Brian: [00:05:00] So how do you get and I’ll ask you this, and I’m so sorry. How do you pronounce your name? Angele?

Angele: Yes. 

Brian: Angele. Okay… perfect. You should have just yelled at me the first time I knew that. So skip, tell me how you get in and I’ll ask you this question too, Angele. Skip, how did you get into the glammy business? What sparked this whole kind of I want to investigate this and build and learn and adapt and dive into new industry.

Skip: Yeah, sure. It really was, and it started decades ago. We We went to a bed and breakfast. My wife and I, shortly after we’d been married and it was really cool in the Carolinas and they had little cabins that went up, behind the big house. And we sat there the next morning, any breakfast and said, honey, when we retire, we’re gonna do something just like this.

This is what I want to do. We love to entertain. I’m I’m a musician. I play music and we just love to have. 

Brian: What kind of music do you play? 

Skip: Oh you name it blues, rock and roll. 

Brian: Can we, are we gonna get a. 

Skip: Yeah, the the the baby grant’s right here, so yeah. You might talk me into it.

Either that or maybe I’ll pull out harmonica and give you a little blues.[00:06:00] What happened was when I we were in Nashville, Tennessee, and we had bought an old building on Second Avenue, right downtown Nashville in 2004. Should bought more buildings in Nashville in 2004, but one was pretty good.

And we had we renovated one of the floors. It was an absolute beautiful space called the Music Loft. And it it was our home, our residents, but it also turned into a music venue. We did a lot of private record release parties and artist showcases, that kind of thing, and eventually started doing short-term rental there through V R B O.

So that was our in at that point, into the short-term rental business. And I retired in 2017 from the IT business world. And that’s when we started thinking, what where was that idea that we had 30 years ago? So we started to look around, we looked at some wineries and some inns and things like that really weren’t finding the right thing.

So we decided we were gonna build from scratch. And once we did that, we said all bets are off. We can do whatever we want. Let’s look out [00:07:00] there and figure out what we really want to do. And it was about unique lodging and we came across the, we looked at a lot of stuff, the same thing, domes and tree houses and hobbit huts and, all kinds of things.

But we really fell in love with the safari tent idea. Went to that glamping conference in Denver, hooked up with Bush Tech, who’s out of Atlanta. So they were close to where we were at here once we’d bought the property down here in Alabama. And yeah, the rest is four years of a lot of hard work. 

Brian: So how do you, as you’re building this process as you’re looking at all the different options and all the different accommodations and all the different ways you can design and build, and what a minute, how do you end up settling on what you have today?

And was there anything that you didn’t do that you wish you had done? 

Skip: Wow. You know what, no, that’s a loaded question. It’s on purpose though. It really is. If I’d have, if I looked back we are the, we’re just those kind of people. The same with buying the soul building. Even our realtor told us, don’t do it.

It was not cool at that time to live in downtown Nashville in oh four. And we’ve just…[00:08:00] 

Brian: oh, skip this, skip vanished on us. 

Angele: Oh, no, 

Brian: that’s all right. I’m gonna, 

Angele: Yes. You got it. You got it. 

Brian: Yeah, three times. Angele, do you wanna tell us, like that same question to you right? Just background on your business a little bit you gave us, but do you wanna tell us how you got started in glamping?

Angele: Sure. Yeah. So for us, like we started in glamping first is because we absolutely love the region we’re in. It’s very beautiful here. Where we are in New Brunswick, it’s very close to all the nice beaches. We’re known the lobster capital of Canada. It’s like right around where we are.

Brian: I’ve never been there yet. It’s on my list, but..

Angele: Oh, you have to come, you have to come and especially in the summer cuz you get all the fresh seafood as well from our region. So for me I grew up in this region right across from where we built a resort. And the nature is so beautiful here. It’s so vibrant.

There’s tons of bird habitats, that [00:09:00] are there like, on the creek where Creekside is, we have a lot of blue herons. There’s a lot of deers that live on the property. It actually used to be an old apple farm and it turned into a forest over the years and so there’s so many apple trees everywhere.

So there’s a lot of deers that reside on their property. And we just had a lot of love and passion for the area and we decided to build a glamping. And when we decided to build was right prior to Covid. And we started to build the roads and everything. And then Covid happened in March and that’s the month that our domes were arriving here in Canada.

So the same time that everything came on a shut down, everything was arriving here to start building. And we were giving it a lot of talk cuz initially we didn’t know if it was the right timing for us to keep moving forward. But. After, like we taught about it, we decided to keep moving and build a glamping, but it was probably the best thing we have done.

And to make that decision because [00:10:00] what’s happened is a lot of people were used to travel on all inclusive vacations or downside or cruises, and everybody was at home and wanted to get out of their home and have a nice experience. And so we became a really hotspot for everyone, especially the local market.

So everybody was happy that they could come out and enjoy and be in nature and distress and get some fresh air and have the nice experience. And for us, the way we built the resort was to offer that type of luxury that you would get when you go to an all-inclusive resort and you have the choice of getting all of your food.

Local food, all the catering, everything served to you. So we have offered, we decided to offer that experience at our resort, but in nature. So people could come in and they have their private hot tub, their private barbecue hammocks it. We built the inside of our cabins to be very [00:11:00] luxurious, so they can also have a full kitchen, full bedroom.

They can cook but we also cater all of the food from local lobster oysters. They can get their private oyster chucking service also, where the person will cook, come and even cook it for you on the grill the way you like it or serve it raw. So we have all these elevated experiences that we have brought, also at the same time.

Brian: I need to, we need to do a live show from there, Cara.

Cara: Yeah, it looks incredible. How many units do you have? 

Angele: So we have five domes and we have two cabins. And the two cabins we just opened last November. And the cabins are mirror cabin. They’re made with mirror panels. So the outside of the cabin, when you look at it, it’s like you’re, you don’t even see a cabin.

All is the reflection of nature and the trees. And that was the whole concept of this cabin was to create a more immersive experience in nature. So for us, we’re really big into. The nature and the beautiful surrounding. And we wanted to [00:12:00] feature experiences and do things where people can come and really enjoy that.

And that’s where the mirror cabins came to life. And also the wellness part came with the Nordic Spa. All of our units, the seven units we have on site all have private hot tubs. But we were like, oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we have the sauna and the cold plunging tubs? And, you cannot actually, 

Brian: I dunno about the cold plunging tubs, everything else I was on board with until you.. 

Cara: Oh, they’re so good for you.. 

Angele: You’re so you would take being a Canadian, right?

Like us Canadian?

Brian: I did one of ’em in Europe. My girlfriend and I went to a really super old like Roman spa, but I’m not like signing up to do that every week.

Cara: No, it’s so good for you. You’re supposed to do it every day. 

Brian: I know. I’m aware. It’s still really cold. And we went through the whole steps.

We went through one of those seven step Roman, like where it slowly got colder and it was still too. I’m just a baby. I dunno. 

Cara: I’m curious what your operating season looks like. 

Angele: Yeah. For us, we’ve been very fortunate since we’ve opened. We haven’t had any vacancy and we have pretty large, [00:13:00] cancellation lists of accumulated and our season it’s very different.

I will say in the summer we get a lot of tourism in our region because of all the nice beaches and the local seafood. And we have a lot of tourist local cultural things around too, like Acadian Museum and Ax and all kind of this fun stuff that people like to come and see. But in the winter we have a lot of the local market here in Canada that wanna just get out and enjoy the winter activities as well.

And people enjoy the hot tub, especially in the winter. Oh yeah. That’s been a big thing. And also we have a lot of snowshoeing trails on site and. Lot of cross country ski trails not far. So people come and they can have a really nice, so we have, we don’t really have a season that’s been off for us.

I think we just attract different types of market in different season. 

Cara: Yeah, no, it’s fabulous. 

Brian: So you’re saying even if I wanted to come, I can’t come. 

Angele: We will make sure that we accommodate you and we find a way [00:14:00] to get your here as long we get a bit of notice, 

Brian: like two years or not. 

Welcome Ruben. And we..

Ruben: Happy Wednesday. 

Brian: How was your, how was the glamping call this week? 

Ruben: It was good. It was good. We had Irene Wood with fields of Michigan, and so it’s always a interesting time as everybody knows where they’re most people, especially if they’ve got some seasonality going on, they’re about to open the doors.

And so this march, April timeframe is always interesting to see where everybody’s at as everybody’s on the cusp. Opening and about to run a million miles an hour and hopefully good news ahead of them. But yeah, the March, April timeframe in the outdoor space is always interesting. 

Brian: Do you know skip and Angele?

Ruben: Very nice to meet you guys. How are you? 

Skip: Absolutely. You as well, Ruben. 

Angele: Nice to meet you. 

Brian: So we were just to catch you up Ruben and Cara for what you missed. So Skip is gonna play a song for us in a little bit, either on the piano or..[00:15:00] 

Ruben: Meeting and entertainment. Who would’ve thought? I love it. 

Brian: I know that’s, yeah and he runs a really nice glamping resort in Alabama.

He’s telling us about it. And then Angele is in New Brunswick. She also, we probably heard most of that at the tail end of that. Has some really nice amenities at her Glamping Resorts. And Skip. We wanna come down to yours too. It’s just that Angele is in the same country.

Skip: Sure. Absolutely. 

Brian: I like Alabama.

I’ve been to it many times and you’re right, it is beautiful. But I’m also very spoiled in Calgary. New Brunswick is great spoil too. Like we’re..

Skip: I can imagine. 

Brian: It’s not Toronto in the middle of the country or Saskatchewan. Alright. Anyway, so what what’s new in the glamping industry? Do we have any questions that we want to, ask, skip, ask Angele?

How do you guys.

Ruben: Yeah, yeah, the question always seems to be top of mind now and curious to see what everybody’s take is now, as we get to this time in March, in April, without having to use necessarily a crystal ball. What do people feel. Items that are, different on the cusp of this season.

If they’re to make predictions on what’s coming up this year, then [00:16:00] different than what was happening maybe last year or the year before. I think we’re at a very interesting point in the market where, two or three years ago, there was a level of consistency across two years, and now it feels just like a different year.

Not bad, but different in ways. And I think what people are seeing on the ground is always an interesting, takeaway that people can use in their own business. It doesn’t matter what side of the outdoor hospitality side they’re on. But just see what.

Anybody seen as the season is now about to happen or underway, depending if people are still under maybe a little bit of snow depending on how they got hit this last winter. Everybody’s a little bit different scenario. But if there’s any kind of predictions or kind of crystal ball comments that people can make, say no, so far with my interactions with potential guests or here’s what I see really is most likely about to happen, for this for this season.

Again, no right or wrong answers. Just curious to see what people are seeing.

Brian: We lost Skip, so do you wanna take that first? I know, I think we’ve established that the business is great for you still, but is there any difference in [00:17:00] consumer behavior or bookings or anything you’ve noticed with requests maybe.

Angele: Yes, for sure. I mean for us, what I see the difference is cuz when we opened, as I was sharing it was during Covid, it was in 2020 that we have opened. So that was a completely different market than it is today. What we’re seeing is a lot of people now instead of traveling local, they’re starting to travel back a little bit international as well.

And so they are going on those cruises or all-inclusive resorts that maybe they had canceled prior to around the covid time. And so for us, what we’re also like having to adjust to is really enhancing the experience We always have to strive to keep enhancing those experience to keep it very interesting.

Get a lot of the same guests that are coming and get a lot of the local market at this time of the year. And so we’ve been working harder on those type of experiences. Like for example, we’ve partnered with a local llama farm and they will come and we’ll do llamas and glamping days, and then they will come [00:18:00] with dilemmas and you hike with your own llama on our trails and then you can.

And stay in the dome at night and then you get to feed the llama and learn. So we are trying to partner with a lot of local farms and companies to create very unique experiences. We also have incorporated with the Nordic Spa, we do a lot of things like that too, like retreat. Type days. So then it also attracts a lot of the maybe like companies or local people that will get together and come and rent all accommodation, but also do these type of events.

So that’s how we’re having to fill the gaps and really ensure that we have we’re full all the time. Versus when two years ago, we would’ve filled either way because people were not traveling internationally. And during Covid, people were really restricted to where they could go. So at the time people would just come, they just wanted to get out of their house.

We were not far, so we didn’t have, but now we have to just work a little bit harder and think outside the box, to create those type of [00:19:00] experiences. 

Ruben: And are you actually getting that in the feedback too, just from your property? Because expectations are changing, right? And so what what now people expect, now that they’ve got more travel options, are you just reading between the lines?

Or do you feel like guests are being a bit more Verbal about their expectations? Or is it post-day reviews that you’re seeing what those expectations are? What does that look like from your property and that guest perspective? 

Angele: Yeah, and I would say that for us at Creekside like we do have for sure, like the guest experience is the expectation is there.

And. They expect a lot more. I think that perhaps what it used to be, and even myself traveling a lot I can see the shift with that. But, we ha that’s where you have to ensure that, for us inside, like we have to ensure everything is there and it’s very clear on how that’s communicated as well and how we welcome the guests.

So as long [00:20:00] we are clear, so when the guest comes in the same day, we send a text, we welcome them, and we lay out all of the details. We send emails before so they ensure what they’re getting and not getting. So it’s very clear. And if they want these extra services or they’re expecting certain things that they’re aware that they can get it and how that kind of works with us.

But inside the domes, like we have custom. Soaps. We provide organic olive oil, like we’ve raised the bar on a lot of the things we offer. So like instead of just regular salt, we’ll put himalayan salt, we’ll put the whole black pepper corn, we’ll put the handcrafted local soap made with olive oil.

Like we’ll do things that we know will meet those expectations. People will communicate their reviews, which is very interesting. Most of the guests that come out of Creekside, I would say 80% will put a review. Either it’s a positive or negative. They will let us know. We’ve been pretty fortunate to keep it at five star.

So we’ve been able to keep it at five Star and we almost have 300 [00:21:00] reviews. So we’re the highest, highest-rated glamping resort now in our region. But it, we work hard for. I gotta say we work hard and every little thing counts for us in terms of how we communicate with the customer. By all those email, the texts, when they’re here, we validate to make sure they’re okay.

They’ve checking well, they got everything they need. If they, there’s something they want more, we address it immediately. But those expectations are there. 

Cara: I really think that’s the shift we’re seeing is given this huge expansion or reopening of travel options, really guests are able to they just have a ton of options again.

And so they’re, that’s really driving their purchase decisions. I think. I know on I mean on the Camping side, we’re really seeing a strategic shift specifically towards, back towards welcoming international guests. [00:22:00] The rentals and glamping push in all the marketing stuff is big right now.

That’s obviously a huge market that’s been on top for us the last couple years. But then also, we’re using those assets across properties to market and promote the lifestyle to potential new campers as those are obvious entry points for campers and RV ownership and all of those things.

Rentals and glamping specifically. We see those as great compliments to the industry as a whole, and I think that’s where the shift has for. Our members specifically is that I’m seeing is this strategy to really capture the attention of travelers again, because there’s so much more competition.

Now, again since before Covid the last couple years have been so strong, but we need to get and remain competitive again here. 

Brian: That’s interesting. There’s two things that you’re talking about basically, I think is, and number one is the [00:23:00] marketing aspect of it, right?

And that’s two reasons. So Ruben, and I wanna, I’m curious for your thoughts on this too, as far as what you’ve seen shift in other people’s businesses, but from a marketing perspective, Maybe more local during covid. Now a different type of audience that can come from anywhere. Whether it’s international, overseas, Canada, you just whatever, or just further away and not as local.

So that shift, how do you adjust your marketing to meet that change demographic? To explain maybe your resort better, to show that you have different options or upscaled options. There are, a variety of things that can compete with the luxury hotel resorts, if that’s your vertical, the luxury right.

That you’re competing with. And then the second piece is what Angele was explaining is the communication. Which I feel like there are so few people who do this as well as they could and then part of that is my marketing background. But the more you over communicate with them, the more that they will be happy and you’ll keep that fire star rating and you’ll keep those good reviews and the more that they’ll think you have an exceptional experience and they’ll go leave your review.

Cuz it’s really challenging to get to the five star reviews. It’s easy to get [00:24:00] the bad ones. So I know that was a lot, but. I think that’s what I took away. But Ruben, can I.. 

Ruben: Curious to see what you guys think first. Skip. 

Skip: Okay. Hey, thanks. And sorry for the technical diff difficulties. Yeah, I, it’s funny, our market here, which we were surprised we opened we’ve been opened a little about a year and three quarters or so, and we thought we would have a more diverse spread, but we’re probably 60 40, I would say within almost 150 mile radius is about 60% of our business.

And maybe that was due to covid. I, I assume maybe it was ..

Brian: But do you think that’s, and I’m sorry, lemme interrupt you, but do you think that’s also just, it’s a thought, right? Do you think it’s also because there are more glamping resorts popping up now and so that becomes narrower?. 

Skip: It very well may be very well.

And again, we’ve had people from LA and New York and, all over the country. No, nobody international yet. But we’re working on it. I think the interesting that also ties to the channels, the booking channels that you use. So we see a lot of our[00:25:00] more distant guests coming through, through the channels like VRBO or Airbnb or Expedia and, tho those types of things.

And a lot of our direct bookings come from our marketing, our locally focused marketing. But it’s gonna be interesting. I, we are we’re pretty much on track like we were last year for this time of. We’ve tried to do some things. We built a stage last fall, so we have live music venue live music venue, music under the stars that we opened last fall, and we’ve got the music series running throughout that.

So we’re seeing some interests built and then we get bookings in conjunction with people who want to come, and listen to music and then not have to go back home again. So that seems to be helping. I think really though Angele, you hit the nail on the head too, is just, if it’s the reason why we took the word resort and made that a part of our property name is to make sure that you could separate yourself from this huge wide, array of things that people call glamping.

And that’s only getting more [00:26:00] and more diverse and confusing. So we wanted to make sure that people understood, they aren’t coming to stay. Yes, you’re in a tent, but once you walk inside the tent, you’re, you truly are in a luxury lodging environment. And again, all the amenities that you’re talking about, locally sourced goat milk, soap, and the types of things that set you apart ..

Brian: From all these places. 

Skip: I’m sorry. 

Brian: Yeah. I just wanna be on the road all like Ruben, hook up, hook us up, Ruben. I’ll be like a for aga, you just send me all the places. 

Ruben: Deal. No, and I think that’s the growth of, these you guys as operators and the growth of the industry has been in continual to be the uniqueness and inspirational.

Work that you guys have put into, create the vision and then see it all the way through. Cause that’s a very hard thing to even start, let alone execute well. I think to your guys’ point earlier, I think, the guest in itself will do whatever they feel comfortable at that time.

During Covid, it was all about that, to your guys’ point, hyper, [00:27:00] hyper-local travel. We’ll explore our backyards for the first time in a while and they’re as happy as can be. And then travel opens up and then people are as happy as can be to, go back to the way things were and hop on flights and, and so it’s unfortunately always, adjusting the hard part is always adjusting.

At the necessary pace without straying away from your genu, your genuine core of your business. And how do you do that? And I think it’s a lot of, honest conversations. It’s a lot of, asking the right questions and getting the right feedback. But there’s always gonna be cycles, right?

There’s always gonna be iterations of what the guests wants and doesn’t want, and based off of what the market will give them. And it’ll be interesting to see, that’s why I think those crystal wall questions are important because it’s you know what’s on what is the pivot or the change that’s on the horizon?

It’s not enough to completely disrupt or completely change the outdoor market as a whole, but you gotta pay attention to it because sometimes those slight changes are what sets you apart. And those slight [00:28:00] changes allow for you to details, be ahead of the competition just enough. Because anything, we’ve talked about it a bunch in the past, anything that we’re doing today as operators, we had to, think there’s no light switch, right?

We had to do that months ago, if not years ago, to be able to actually have that up and running, do what it needs to do as of today. And that’s the art form, I think, more than the science. 

Skip: Nashville was easy. Nashville was easy. It’s such a huge destination. We didn’t really, when we were doing our short-term rental there, we didn’t really have to, it was more about making sure you got the guests that you wanted, that level of guests that you wanted as opposed to struggling to figure out how to market yourself.

Now that we’re in this environment, even though it’s beautiful and all it’s still it’s become more of a challenge. Figure out, how do I get people to want to come here if they weren’t already planning to, and that’s the thing, we get a lot of business from people that, oh, I’m coming to visit a friend in Auburn, or my kid’s graduating, or it’s a, it’s [00:29:00] an Auburn home game weekend.

And I’m with the opposing college, so we want to come and stay somewhere. Cool. So we found, with making local partnerships, Alabama fly fishing we now partner with them. So when they have people coming in from outta state, they say, this is the place you need to stay. You need to go and stay at the destination.

And we found ways to do that. Also, experience-based visits, so cooking classes, yoga things, songwriter retreats, those types of things are becoming really successful for us. 

Brian: So this is one of the things that interests me is the level of detail and attention that both of you are paying at your resorts.

And I’m sure lots of other glamping resort aren’t just do the same thing. But and I’m curious, Kara, for your take on this, is it and I don’t, I’m not intending to say that anybody’s different or less, or doesn’t do as good a job or whatever is just an open thought question, right?

Is there a benefit to opening a glamping resort with less units that gives you the ability to pay closer attention to those details? Or can it be [00:30:00] this? Because I feel like I don’t see as many campgrounds with cabins and glamping with hundreds of sites paying attention to some of those smaller details.

Not that everyone needs to do that, but those who are trying to attract that kind of clientele. I don’t feel like I see it as often as I do in. 

Cara: So this is where I feel like there will always be space for the small mom and pop operators, the those operators that are out there that are prioritizing the experience and the really well thought out package delivery stuff.

Because there will always be consumers who look for that and you just can’t get it, in my opinion, in a, in the dynamic where you’re prioritizing capacity and those kinds of things. If and, I hate to sound negative about it, but it is the outcome when you see this big shift toward kind of a corporate structure where these investment groups and [00:31:00] stuff are buying up properties.

Their primary necessity is heads and beds technically or RVs and sites or whatever. Because of quantity. And the small mom and pop operators typically tend to, I think quantity is necessary to a point, but there’s also the scale is really balanced between quantity and quality.

I think obviously both ways can be successful. But I really think that’s where the mom-and-pop operations those small businesses with seven units in a stunning spot can really compete and set the bar really high. Someone like a Angele is setting the bar for consumer expectation very high.

So those guests that are visiting her park her property, are going to have that level of expectation and carry it through elsewhere and push other operators to [00:32:00] start exploring that way. I think. 

It’s really comes down to the type of experience you want to offer and if you’re just in, in it for, if you’re the investment guy who’s looking to make dough or really wanting to have this be a lifestyle experience as an operator.

And I think that there’s this industry, a ton of operators prioritize that over, just.. 

Brian: But if you take like the corporation out of it right. Just for a second and look at mom and pop owners of campgrounds too who have maybe 150 RV sites and 25 cabins. I see that less even with the mom and pop people paying attention to the type of soap in the cabin and the towels and, the experiences.

And so is that something that is, because they have so many more sites than a seven or 10 unit landing property, they can’t do that? Or is there a reason they’re not doing that? Or am I just missing it? 

Cara: I think there’s several factors. Probably one of them probably is, yeah, limitation on [00:33:00] resources and, you can only duplicate that level of service so many times with the amount of resources you have.

We have significant like staffing and labor issues across the country here in, in our parks. And obviously seasonality in Canada contributes to that problem too. But I also think it is a a factor of consumers just not demanding it so far. Okay. 

Brian: That’s fair. 

Cara: And so I think that’s where operators like these guys today are impacting that, setting, that bar.

So that, I do think going forward in order to access those guests who are gonna pay. I’m seeing clumping properties charging 450, 500 bucks a night in some units, right? So accessing those guests is going to take, getting to a level of service. It’s going to have, it’s going to push operators if they want to compete at that level to, [00:34:00] to have to do those things.

I just don’t think consumers expectations have been set there in a broad way yet that is required. 

Brian: Not everybody’s the luxury high end that wants the olive oil soaps in the right. So , I think there’s value in whether you’re, regardless of whether you’re target, high end, low end, middle end, whatever.

I think there’s value in the details of whatever that audience is looking for. 

Cara: And I think that’s another factor, is you, it really does sometimes just come down to who your demographic market is. If you’re working in a specialized luxury kind of space, you’re gonna have a certain type of customer.

Whereas if you’re a family resort and you’ve, you’re pushing kids to come to the water park. Your add-ons, your experiential stuff is gonna be different. Instead of fancy soap and Himalayan salt, you might need to sell, add on cute little pool floaties and stuff like that, right?

It’s just a different, you really have to know [00:35:00] your market. And I think that’s both kind of the beauty of this industry is the flexibility, the adaptability the ability to find your niche as an operator and find what you enjoy and love and harness that. But then it’s also one of the biggest challenges because there’s so many things you could do.

And how do you narrow it down and find the right thing without sacrificing on all the kind of business aspects of things you also have, I think for me, one of the challenges as an operator back when I was I have all these great, lofty ideas and I wanna do all this cool, fun stuff, but sometimes logistically, like I, I remembered my insurance guy one time just being like, no, you just stop, close down all the gears in your head here.

You can’t do any of that. And so sometimes reality is makes those things difficult too. That’s another, big hurdle I’m seeing operators facing this season that we haven’t really [00:36:00] seen the last few years is insurance issues waiver liability stuff. So sometimes your decisions don’t get to be decided just on a I really wanna do this cuz it would be fabulous for my guests.

Thing there’s a ton of factors. 

Brian: Now you do bring up a good point though, like, how do, and Angele and Skip, how do you decide to go into the niche that you went into? Why did you decide to target the higher end.

Skip: Angele? 

Angele: Yeah so for me, like why we decided to target the higher end. So when we first started, it’s not like we had in mind we’re going to target the higher end. Like we didn’t really had thought it about it that way. For us it was more. We wanna have that luxurious resort feel, experience in nature but also make it affordable was a really big thing for us.

We didn’t wanna be that. Four, $500 a night type. We wanted people to be able to come here and really enjoy and feel like they’re getting that luxurious experience in nature. But we also [00:37:00] have affordable prices. So anybody feel that they can come and experience our resort. So that’s the principles of what refounded the resort on.

And for us, we’ve adjusted all of a lot of our experiences and how we were going to manage the structure of what we were doing based on that. So we have, a lot of local suppliers, we managed to get some good prices, on some of those local product, but we’re also marketing these local companies, so it’s also increasing their business overall.

And a lot of the guests that come, like for example, we have a local smokehouse and they do smoke sausages and bacon and all that. And they keep telling us how many people keep going over and over now and buying their product because they have experienced it here and because they have seen it on what we’re doing.

So we formed those kind of partnership to help us being able to offer those experiences, but also at affordable prices. And so that’s the [00:38:00] principle of what we have done and not specifically went for that kind of higher price point or market. 

Skip: It’s pretty interesting. We call it the golden rule concept.

It’s Where would I like to go? What would I like to experience? And it’s so do unto others as you would have done to you. Really. That’s the whole concept and that’s what drove us. We know what we like. We’ve done it for quite a while and it’s worked. We had that successful business in Nashville that proved it, proved out the luxury lodging concept people will do it.

In fact, people that you wouldn’t even. We’ll stretch and say, no, we need to do this. We want to go and do, and we’ve had guests here that I would thought, I, in fact, sometimes I’ll get, we’ll our, we’re very small. Four units, two ones, two twos. Our one bedrooms will be booked and I’ll have a get a call from, sounds really nice, a great couple.

Oh, we’re just looking at the, to get away this weekend. And I’m like, ah, yeah man, I’m really sorry. Our one bedrooms aren’t available. And they’re like we [00:39:00] were looking at the music loft, which is one of our two bedroom units, it’s oh, okay, sure. And they have no problem whatsoever.

And so it that’s exciting. And it’s educational to learn that you can’t necessarily put everybody in a box and say these people fit this and these people don’t fit that. You’ll get a lot of people that basically will, it’s their special thing. It’s their time, it’s their getaway.

And they’ll pay, they’ll stretch they’ll cut corners somewhere else to get that experience. It’s pretty cool. That’s.. 

Brian: I don’t identify with that, right? We went to Europe for the Christmas markets last year and I paid a lot more for the hotels I was staying at in Europe than I would when I was traveling, like to Alabama or Tennessee or to Vancouver or something like that.

Because that’s like that once in a, not lifetime, but once in a year maybe that big trip that you wanna remember, right? 

Skip: It’s very important. 

Brian: So what are you seeing with everybody else, Ruben? What’s.. 

Ruben: No, I think, just listening to what you guys are saying, I think one thing that really comes to mind and resonates too is that the reality, right?

You guys have had [00:40:00] everybody hit on there’s no matter what and whatever we do, there’s a reality to our vision, right? It could be our dream, it could be everything that we want to do, the right type of clientele, the right type of outreach, the right type of marketing, but then there’s gonna be the reality of what we can and can’t do.

And I think that’s also based in the fact that. Over the, right now one thing that’s guaranteed is that the market itself is stabilizing, right? We went through such a huge growth where people could literally plop anything out there and say, great, $600 a night, and people say, great, gimme the hell out of the house.

That time’s gone right? I think there’s still a certain level to it, but holistically speaking, that’s gone. So what does that lead to? I think that leads. Operators having to make a choice on what kind of experiences that they want to provide because of the realities and the of what they can and can’t do.

Realities of being the right size of operation. It’d be great if everybody could put a hundred units down in a certain level, but at the same time, is that the best thing for your operation, is the best thing [00:41:00] for the type of experience that you wanna provide. Because if you’ve got a hundred units, you gotta have the right type of people there to, especially if you wanna be more high touch, there’s the reality that connects where we are currently as operators in the market and where we would like our guests to, to be as well.

So it’s almost this trifecta of what the guest is expecting now, what we wanna provide to meet that guest, expectations, and then the reality of what we can and can’t. And what we can and can’t provide. And we hope that all of that matches up, but sometimes it doesn’t. And hearing you guys talk, I couldn’t agree more of over-communicating to the guest and over-communicating, what we’re providing, what we’re not providing.

But I, I think that’s just the last kind of note. And an interesting part of what I’m seeing too is that there’s a reality to everything that we talk about, right? And there’s a reality to what we can do and who we can be and what kind of [00:42:00] execution we can actually provide, right? And I think a lot of that also has to deal.

Go side by side with a stabilization, not, not decreasing, not going in the wrong direction, but just a stabilization of the market. What we saw for years was just great, but not realistic for it to continue like that forever. And then you’ve got those outside forces as people are trying to expand higher interest rates, higher material costs, harder to find contractors, just the cost of actually developing, it’s not as easy as it once was to borrow money and say, great, I’ll put up an extra 10 units because we’re at a hundred percent capacity.

People are really asking those hard questions of what’s my.. What is my definition of success and what is my definition of an exit? Cuz it’s not necessarily a exit of great, I’m gonna sell this business to somebody else. Maybe my, my definition of successful exit is the cash flowing, operation that I can kinda hand off to the next generation, right?

And that’s great. Yeah. But those are [00:43:00] questions that. You can only ask while swimming in the lane that is the current lane that you’re swimming in versus cuz you asked those questions three years ago, you have different answers, you have different perspectives. And you have to look through the lens of today and hopefully look through the lens of one year down the road.

And you can maybe do that, but it’s a hot part to do. So three years down the road, cuz things change drastically and you’re hoping to make the right decisions that put you in line with, good decisions based off of the market there. But again if everybody could do that perfectly then they probably wouldn’t be working then They’d already be retired a hundred percent.

Angele: I really love what you’re saying, Ruben, like in what you’re saying actually just made me think too for us, when you like the ability to sustain, what you’re doing based on. Adapting with the changes in the environment and the demand like in the market. Like cuz like you’re saying like two years ago we could have probably charged four, $500 a night and we would’ve been full no questions asked.[00:44:00] 

And that’s what we were thinking. While we could do that right now and we would be booked, we wouldn’t have to worry. But the thing is, how can we sustain that? How long can we sustain that? And if we build our brand and resort on that, we don’t want people to think, oh this resort is too expensive.

Cuz now things are changing, the economy’s changing the inflation, people are traveling more international, there’s a saturation. Even in our area in New Brunswick now they’re glamping resort are, have opened everywhere. And so if we would’ve built our resort on that, I’m not sure we would’ve been able to sustain that to today’s market.

So that is such a good point cuz I know for us we had given a lot of thought to that when we started.

Brian: Skip, anything to add to that or

Skip: We yeah. We let the, it was a lesson again that we learned in Nashville was we let the market determine where we fell. We, we priced ourselves at a certain point that we thought was reasonable. And then, once we, once our booking, our occupancy hit a certain point, we notched that up a little bit and, oh, we [00:45:00] noticed people didn’t go away, so we notched it up a little bit more and they still didn’t go away.

So we notched it up a little bit more. Now we’re not, again, in the exact same situation there at. As we are here. But that same concept has worked for us. It helped us to prove, to say, here’s what we can get in this market, for and obviously we still like higher occupancy than what we’ve got right now, but that’s it’s coming it gets to that midweek stuff, the weekend’s, ooh, they book out easy.

Now how do we get people to show up on a Monday, Tuesday night, or a Tuesday, Wednesday night? Or stay Thursday through Monday, that type of thing. I think it’s, you have to pay attention that’s the only thing you have to pay attention and be willing. A lot of times the phone will ring and Be just because of our current situation where we’re at.

And yeah, I’ll say yeah. Hey, look, I say, I say, Hey, it’s four 50 a night for a two bedroom tent. And people go, oh, wow. Yeah. Anna, it’s a tent. And I, you try to give ’em all the features and justify it to them. And then I might say guess what? If [00:46:00] you’re coming next week they’re open, I’d love to book it.

I’ll give it to you for 3 75. We do that frequently too. We, you gotta be dynamic with it. 

Cara: Yeah. I do think it’s one of the kind of necessary pieces always staying on top and it does really require adaptability and I think that’s, can sometimes be one of the hurdles.

I, I’ve said this on the show before one of my biggest challenges as an operator was fighting that tunnel vision where it was like, okay, we’re doing things here on this property this way, and this is working today. And then, you get into this daily routine and you’re focused on like experience delivery and making everything functional.

And also all the logistical payroll things and all the stuff, day-to-day stuff. And before you know it, you’ve lost, you’re just going down this path in a kind of robotic way. And so being able to step back and say, do, where do I need to [00:47:00] shift? What, what are my rates doing right now?

How does my , do I need to, should I be raising my rates? Should I be taking that time? And that kind of bird’s eye view perspective really regularly is so necessary. I think especially. It smaller operations and it can be a challenge to, to fit that in when you have all the other, unclogging the club toilet and payroll that way. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Skip: I love my wife’s literally it, it was just a few months ago, she goes, man, who knew? I love to make bed so much. It’s like this, there’s great revelation in her life. She goes, and she’s really good at it, I can’t do it the way she does, but she really pays attention very uniquely and that kind of stuff pays off.

We get, we get people that mention that in their reviews. They’re like, the bed was just, so nice and it was made so well, and it was like, wow. It’s fun to take [00:48:00] pride in those kind. We also do, oh, I’m sorry. We also reward our there, you have to be loyal. So one thing we found, we do family and friends discounts.

We do returning guest discounts. And it, I was, I’m so surprised. We’ve literally have again, we’ve been open a year and a half. We’ve got people that have been here six times in a year and a half that have come back again and again. And not necessarily from right down the street either.

So it’s that, those types of things that we and Ron to say, man, if we had just 150 of those people, we’d be good. We’d be set. 

Cara: We’re set. I do think oftentimes it’s those really little things that we put not a ton of stock into that really can be. Can really lend to that level of experience.

I like getting into a well-made bed. That’s, there’s a level of luxury there that I can appreciate. Absolutely. And I think we can often minimize those. Those little touches that, that really [00:49:00] matter. And they speak a lot to that word of mouth thing that so many operators are really dependent on.

Brian: And that’s one of the things too is like is when you’re in that every day, when you’re constantly making the beds, when you’re constantly cleaning the bathrooms, when you’re constantly replacing this. So it’s hard to imagine oh, the guest thinks this is special because I do it every single day.

Skip: Who knew? Hot tubs were so much work. Oh my gosh. People love ’em. But that’s a, that’s, you gotta look at ’em every stinking day, man. Every day. 

Cara: Every day. I know. I, one of I, years ago was at the park and I was having an exceptionally poor day, and I had a goo, a Google Review come in commenting about, so every day I had this big garden greenhouse on the property, and I would just cut fresh flowers and put them in the lady’s bathroom.

And this Google Review talked all about getting fr having fresh flowers in the lady’s bathroom every day. That was just, a routine robotic thing for me. So for it to have this really positive impact like that, [00:50:00] something so small that really I was doing for myself. If I gotta be in here cleaning this place, I’m gonna make it look nice and enjoyable.

But yeah, it really had an impact and yeah, those small things can mean so much. 

Brian: So what’s the outlook for 2023 from your perspective, Ruben?

Ruben: Hold on. Somebody take that one real quick. 

Cara: 2023. Oh my gosh. Like I said before, I think we’re really seeing exposure to markets we haven’t seen here in Canada for a while. Lots of, I just had a call yesterday with a couple of the RV rental agencies that are bringing people over.

We’re talking with several glamping businesses about how we can be marketing a lot of our Camping events through the year to their customers so that, a lot of those guests are staying in RV parks that have glamping options. And those are good, segue customers who oftentimes end up buying RVs and staying in [00:51:00] campgrounds.

So I think there’s a lot of opportunity to. While we’re, elevating expectation levels and delivering these extremely high level experiences in properties to also really start to capture the interest again of folks that maybe we haven’t seen for a while or who are totally new to the lifestyle.

And I think that’s exciting stuff as we’re transitioning away from just hanging out in our backyards, which has been obviously sustaining and wonderful. But a nice segue and shift for sure. 

Brian: Angele, any final thoughts? So we have a couple minutes left while Skip gets his harmonica.

Angele: Yeah,

Skip: well, Skip’s got it already. Alright. 

Brian: All right. Any final thoughts, Angele before we have Skip give his, and then play us out of the episode? 

Angele: Sure. Yeah. So for me, I would say like what I see for 2023 in the glamping, I think the increase of tourism or people [00:52:00] wanting to experience the outdoors and nature is increasing is going to keep increasing a lot more.

So I think maybe we’ll start to see also a little bit more unique experiences in nature are doing a lot more stuff, backyard kind of style experiences. And I also think that the wellness part. Included to the accommodation is also really growing. I’m not too sure about the US but I know in Canada, like where people want, they look at these type of adventures like the glamping industry.

Yep. To go and de-stress and disconnect and reconnect and just be in nature alone in itself is like healing, so I think a lot of people are looking at that more and more. So that’s what I see happening in 2023 is that for us, our sector is going to see a lot of increases, even more into these type of things.

Brian: Awesome. A hundred percent agree. Skip, I’m gonna let you finish up in a second before we go. We talked a little bit about the [00:53:00] details, right? Some of the things you can overlook at a busy Campground, stuff like that. And that’s one of the values of our sponsor of today’s episode is Horizon Out Outdoor Hospitality.

I just wanna thank them for sponsoring our monthly glamping show. They are a Campground, RV Park primarily, but they do a lot of glamping, high-end resorts, management company third party as well. So if you are one of those people who would like to maybe get more into those details pay more attention to some of those things and you don’t have the bandwidth to do then maybe Horizon might be a good fit for you.

And we’re certainly grateful for them for sponsoring our episode. Skip, any final thoughts? 

Skip: Yeah. Hey, first off the top of my head, Ryan thank you so much. We’re really grateful for you guys reaching out to us and letting us be a part of this. We’re excited about the industry as a whole and we believe there’s plenty of opportunity for growth.

Yes, you’re right. It’s growing. Certain areas become more saturated than. We don’t necessarily have that problem here right now, although the state park up the road just advertise some glamping, that they’ve added and that type of thing. So it’s bound to happen. But we feel like the services that we offer are [00:54:00] location, and then that, that just attention to detail is going to set us apart and keep us profitable and popular at moving forward.

We’re really excited to be a part of the glamping industry and this is where we live. We live onsite. We believe it’s a 24 hour day operation, especially when we have people here. It’s not a V R B O show up and your key is there and you never see anybody or talk to anybody until you leave.

We love to meet our guests and be a part of it.

Brian: Awesome. Thank you guys for another great episode. Skip, do you wanna take us out seriously with some blues? 

Skip: Yeah, sure. In honor of your, in honor of your dog that you just held up is a little

Brian: Yeah, she’s leave alone. Every time I go to town to keep on kicking my dog around, I don’t care if he is.

Skip: Hound better. Quit kicking my dog. Get around.

I went to the ball the other night. I saw my dog in a terrible fight. The [00:55:00] other dog had him on the ground. Summer started kicking my dog a around.

I went out hunting with my dog, blue. I was going to catch me a rabbit or two. Then I heard this terrible sound. A bunch of rabbits kicking my dog around. 

And how about that? 

Brian: That was wonderful. Thank you. That was great. We’ll see you guys next week in another episode of MC Fireside chats. Thanks, Skip, Angele, Cara as always. We’ll see you guys later. 

Cara: Thanks guys. 

Angele: Thank you. 

Skip: See you. Bye now. Nice to meet you. 

[00:56:00]