MC Fireside Chats – August 13th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. Hopefully you guys can hear me. I’m in my remote studio of not having somebody who normally operates my camera and my mic and trying to figure out technology for the first time. I’m like a little baby.

Hopefully this all goes off smoothly. And if not, then we have wonderful people here, Zach, Scott, Brian and Ann, Jayne, who are gonna just take over the show anyway and I won’t talk. And then you all actually enjoy it for once probably. Excited to be here for another episode. We have a couple of our recurring guests.

We have Zach and we have Scott who gonna introduce themselves in a second. And then we have Jayne, who’s one of our new recurring guests. And we also have my dog in the background who needs to be let out on the balcony. Apparently we five minutes and go back in and out. She’s barking at me. She may have some commentary in the show.

And then we have Brian and Ann, who are our special guests for this episode. So let’s just go around the room and briefly introduce ourselves. Brian and Ann, you wanna start since they’re your special guests. 

Brian Konradi: Sure. Excited to be here. Thanks. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: So I’m Ann Tyler Konradi. 

Brian Konradi: Yeah. And I’m Brian Konradi and we’re the Owners of the Yurtopian. We have two locations, both in Central Texas, between Austin and San Antonio. And we started in 2019. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: That’s right. 

Brian Searl: Zach, you wanna go? Sorry. I direct you.

Zach Stoltenberg: Zach Stoltenberg. I’m the Associate Principal for Architecture at LJA. We’re design engineering architecture firm, and we specialize in helping people build campgrounds, glampgrounds, luxury, every parks, boutique, hotels, experiential stays.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here as always. Zach. Zach’s gonna be our guest host, right? Is that, do you commit to that next, right before I announce.

Zach Stoltenberg: Next month? Yeah, we’ll do it. 

Brian Searl: I’ll be in, I’ll be in Ireland. Like I was struggling. I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to run the show, right? Like I, every time I hit something on my phone, now it pops up in half Gaelic and half English and I don’t know, I’m not sure what setting I did to make that happen.

But Scott, go ahead. 

Scott Foos: Thanks Brian. Hey everybody. Scott Foos. I am a Managing Partner with Horizon Outdoor Hospitality. We operate currently nearly 30 properties from coast to coast and also offer professional services and consulting, exclusively serving the outdoor hospitality space. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Brian Searl: Are you actually exclusive? ’cause I say that to people too and then somebody asked me to take on a storage business or something like that and I do it as a. 

Scott Foos: No. Right now we are, yeah, exclusively outdoor hospitality. 

Brian Searl: Look, there’s Casey Cochran. Casey you exclusively outdoor hospitality too?

Casey Cochran: Yes we are.

Brian Searl: Okay. Like a hundred percent or just like 99.9% because that’s what. 

Brian Konradi: Drilling down on that one. 

Casey Cochran: I feel like it’s a hundred percent. Someone, correct me if I’m wrong, but can you consider some storage and marinas Outdoor Hospitality? 

Brian Searl: No, not unless it’s outdoor storage. 

Casey Cochran: We only do outdoor storage, so we’re good.

Brian Searl: Okay, perfect. Go ahead, introduce yourself since you popped in we’re talking. 

Casey Cochran: Yeah, I didn’t mean to interrupt, Casey with Campspot. Good to see everyone. Glad to be on. 

Brian Searl: That’s it? You just assume everybody knows what Campspot is? 

Casey Cochran: No, man. We dabble in things here and there. We’re just trying to make people happy. That’s what we do. 

Brian Searl: Alright, welcome Sir.

Jayne? 

Jayne Cohen: Hi everyone. I’m Jayne Cohen from Campground Consulting Group and our sister company is Glamping Consulting Group and we just do everything outdoor hospitality. 

Brian Searl: Welcome Jayne. Appreciate you being here. Excited to have you as our current guest going forward.

And then Brian and Ann last, but not we, will you introduce yourself already? Brian, tell us a little bit. Yes. Tell us a little bit more about your property, is what I meant to say. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Sure. 

Brian Searl: And how you got started in the business and what’s going on. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Absolutely. We’re husband and wife team. As Brian said earlier, we started in 2019.

We have two locations. One is Wimberley, that’s our original location, and we have six yurts there that we run out. And then we have a second location in Dripping Springs, about 45 minutes from us that has 10 units and then both have a spa yurt on the property. And 

Brian Konradi: and then we got four more that we use personally. We have 22 Yurts in between our two properties here in central Texas. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: So we are sitting in one now. This is our office yurt. Yeah, we run ’em under the same brand, the Yurtopian, and it’s been a fun wild ride. 

Brian Searl: So how did you get started here? 

Casey Cochran: Brian? 

Brian Searl: Yeah. Go ahead Casey, what’d you say? 

Casey Cochran: What do I need to do to get an office yurt? I officially. 

Brian Searl: That’s what i’m, I guess I really can’t complain an. 

Casey Cochran: Office. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: I say Eve, talk to Eve at Groovy Yurts. That’s where we get our yurts. He’s pretty awesome. He’s a.

Brian Searl: Good idea.

Brian Konradi: He works with a family in Mongolia and they hand paint these yurts. They’re very soulful, yurts.

And he’s got a great relationship with the the Mongolian people in general. I think he’s one of the larger importers of 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: any Mongolian 

Brian Konradi: of Mongolian other than raw materials, the largest importer to Canada of from Mongolian. And it’s all about Yurts and Yurt related products.

Brian Searl: Wow. That’s a little bit more of a fascinating story. I feel like we could hear about. So how do you end up 

Brian Konradi: We can spend the next hour talking about Eve and those Mongolian Yurts, they’re amazing. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: He’s pretty cool. He has a fascinating story. You should definitely have him on.

He’s in Ontario and so he, he has a relationship with the family. They hand strip the wood and steam it to bend it into position. And then if you can see, it’s really beautiful at the top. It’s all hand painted. And and then he ships ’em into Canada, typically. They come into Vancouver at, and then he trucks ’em around to where, or ships ’em around to wherever they need to go.

And they’re all over the world. 

Brian Searl: They’re beautiful.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: It’s pretty cool.

Brian Searl: Zach you’re an architect, right? Do you have questions before I ask my non-scientific special architect questions? 

Zach Stoltenberg: No I was actually gonna ask where you got your yurts from?

Brian Konradi: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: Because there, there’s a few, suppliers and I’ve worked with both of them.

They’re two big ones in the US anyway. And they, they definitely build, great products. But I think the thing that makes, what you guys have is that it is different, right? That it has that personal touch, it has a tie to the culture, the connection that originated those structures.

And definitely, the story and the kind of hand craftsman that goes with that. I think it’s really cool. And it definitely, we talk all the time on this podcast about the importance of experience over just accommodation. And I think it’s, unique touches and things like that, that help create that experience.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Absolutely. And the other thing that’s interesting about Mongolian Yurts is that they have a layer of insulation that is sheeps wool. So it’s a canvas on the outside and then the sheep’s wool and then a layer of waterproofing we put on. The Mongolians don’t use waterproofing Tyvek, but we do.

And then the sheep’s wool and then the cotton on the interior. But that sheep’s wool is phenomenal insulation. So we put we climate control hours down in Texas. It can get, believe it or not, it can get really cold in the winter, and it definitely gets hot in the summer. And so we have little mini splits that we put in them, and they really hold their temperature well because of that layer of insulation that you don’t always get with a modern style yurt.

Brian Searl: And it works both ways too. Like wool is temperature regulating both hot and cold, right? 

Brian Konradi: Yep.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yes.

Brian Konradi: Insulator either direction. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: That’s right. 

Brian Konradi: And just follow up on Zach, I think when we talked to Eve and he helps us set up these first few yurts that we bought from Groovy Yurts.

He points out that 2000 years, probably more, 2000 years of engineering can’t go wrong. These things have been created by nomads thousands of years ago. And there’s very few nuts or bolts or even nails metal involved in them. They’re made to, they’re engineered to self stabilize.

As you put more weight on them or more wind on them, et cetera, they become stronger. It’s pretty cool structure. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, that, that kind of stuff. Like I, again, like Zach was talking about, we talk on the show all the time about experience and some of that is the activities and the amenities you have on our new Campground.

Some of it is the story behind your yurt. Some of it is the story behind you as operators. You know what, everybody’s story is different. Everybody has different pieces and parts that they wanna tell as part of their property. Some people might have barked in Yorkies. I dunno if you can hear that in the microphone, but so but I found I’ve really found, I haven’t been as much as you would think hosting this show.

Like I’ve been glamping all the time and all over the place. I really haven’t, ’cause they never let me outta the office that much. But I found, as I’ve looked at, I said I was planning a trip to Ireland as I’ve looked at I really wanted to go glamping over there because of all the coastal regions and the, the fields and beautiful mountains and things like that.

And I found, as I worked my way around the country, I even though I haven’t been in them a lot, avoided the places where the combinations are the same and they’re all stacked next to each other, a couple feet away. And they just put them there because of the beautiful location and steered toward the I will go glamping, but I want it to be a unique, I want it to have a story.

I want it to not necessarily be a Mongolian Yurt, but like something that the owner is handcrafted or put love or care into or has an experience or, and so I almost found myself in some cases booking bed and breakfast because, just because of the people, right? The people I knew that in the review were like, Hey, Cheryl was amazing and she came and told the stories over breakfast and that kind of stuff really surprisingly to me, resonated with me more.

’cause I’m typically a hotel guy when I go to big cities, but I don’t know if you guys feel the same way. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah, I think that’s definitely true. No, go ahead. 

Casey Cochran: No, yeah. I was just gonna say, I definitely, I, same way doing so much business travel, Scott probably has the same thing. You do so much business travel, you get accustomed to, the hotel or your rewards and it just becomes automatic.

And the more vacations that we do. Taking the time to just try to find creative ways to stay without it being like aggressively more, more expensive. But, finding those, unique, scenarios as long as, again, I always have to get my wife’s buy-in because, she does like showers and she does like air conditioning and a bed with a pillow.

So there’s certain like non-negotiables, but overall, like the experience, it just makes it so much better in my opinion. If there is that kind of outdoor element in some capacity, so if we can avoid, like I think it’s bugs and having air conditioning, I think those two things can, can somehow happen that I think that, that the world opens up.

Brian Searl: I think it’s just really interesting in our industry as we see this blend that we’re headed to of like the Marriotts and Hiltons being involved in glamping. What ends up coming out of that, we will still have what we have, which is appealing to a lot of people. We’ll have new things that Zach is out building and Scott is managing and Casey’s providing software for, and Jane’s Consulting for like, all kinds of different things.

But it would be interesting to see how that evolves, because I think, like to me, if I’m reserving a really quaint bed and breakfast on the coast of Ireland, that I can walk out the door and I’m on the coast and I can act, to me that’s a form of glamping.

Is that outdoor hospitality? I don’t know. But it’s an interesting. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I think We’re starting to see that transition too. And I know we’ve talked about it before and most of the major flags are now jumping into outdoor hospitality. We’re starting to see some of those announcements. Marriott’s acquisition of postcard last year the partnership with Auto Camp and Hilton I think Windham, I think it’s Windham as partnership with Under Canvas.

To that point, right? Like when you stay at any of those places now, even though you’re glamping and you’re definitely, at an outdoor hospitality brand. You’re stable, still able to get your points and that kind of brand loyalty. And for those business travelers, they’re able to stay at the, the Hampton Inns and build their points, but when they want to take a vacation with their families that they can go and stay at an Auto Camp and cash it in.

So I think we’re already starting to see kinda some of that pivotal change. Myself, I travel a lot for the work that we do. ‘Cause most of the folks that we’re working with, the sites were designing they’re all over the country and some of ’em all are all over the world. Two years ago, I think I spent 85 nights at a hotel. This year I think I’ve spent three.

I will do my best to avoid staying at a hotel at all costs if possible. And it’s just, I think it’s that kind of market change. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, it’s interesting, like I’ve never really been a big hotel person, but when I stay there, like I stay in a lot of hotels, but when I do, I will look for the boutique though, the unique, the experience, the non same chain thing everywhere, right?

Mostly I’m in hotels when I’m in like downtown Dublin for a couple nights. It just makes sense because you wanna walk everywhere, but everywhere else. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’m curious for Brian and Ann because I’m familiar with that part of Texas, and we’ve worked on several resorts that are not too far from you guys.

What do you guys find, is your typical guest makeup at your Yurtopian? Do you get business travelers? Do you get people that are just in that area for a couple days or is it like from your experience who do you think your guests are? 

Brian Konradi: Okay, so part of that is, is refined by what the product is that we have.

So we unlike I think a lot of glamping destinations, are not focused on children. In fact, we only allow adults because we’re trying to create a place where people can reconnect with nature in a quiet setting. And kids are great. We love ’em. We have ’em, but but they don’t, they’re not and conducive for conducive, for conducive for quiet.

We’ve we focused on couples and getaways for couples, it’s most often a kind of a romantic setting, although sometimes we get individuals or friends. Most often it’s a romantic getaway for people. So in that sense it’s usually a birthday, a celebration, a babymoon, a honeymoon. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Elopement or we’ve done a few proposal.

We get a lot of proposals. 

Brian Konradi: That kind of that’s our demographic. And in that sense that’s part of your answer right there. We’re getting couples who want to find fun ways to to get away and escape. Sometimes it’s just for the 24 hours. Sometimes it’s three or four days. And and that’s what we offer.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: And I think we’re far enough outside of the major cities that, a business traveler might add it on as a night for fun, but it’s not like you would commute and you could commute into Austin, but typically you would find something a little bit closer to Austin or San Antonio. And you come to the Yurtopian because you want the experience of being in nature and you’re not going into the city typically.

Zach Stoltenberg: So what say about groups.

Brian Searl: Sorry, go ahead Zach.

Zach Stoltenberg: Because I, I know that, some of the other kind of places, Lucky Arrow and those very near you guys. They do a lot of like groups and corporate events. So that’s something we talked about last month with our guests last month. That’s their core bread and butter business was

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: Hosting groups and large events.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: So That’s true.

Zach Stoltenberg: So did you guys get any traction with that? 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: A little bit. We’ve had some corporate retreats and we do have, our Dripping Springs property has a lodge in the middle of the property that’s an old house that we have a group gathering space for.

And we have had a few elopement weddings and, or like micro weddings and we’ve had a few corporate retreats there. But our setup is really not, like Brian said, like two person occupancy only. They’re all separated, one from the other. As we like to say, you can go naked from the hot tub to the yurt and nobody’s gonna see you.

It is a very, isolated, set up. So Lucky Arrow has more like unit kind of side by side. It’s more conducive to groups. They have a pool that everybody shares. They have. And then they now have a restaurant that some.

Brian Konradi: Great communal space there. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: They have really great communal space, and they’ll bring in winery, they’re next door to a winery, and then they’ll bring in other, for tastings and it’s meant to be social.

And that’s their model was always that way. But we were always the opposite. We don’t mind if people wanna get together, but please don’t do it at your yurt because three people talking, or four people talking and laughing at one yurt is just louder for the neighbor who’s maybe 300 feet over in the woods.

And we’re selling quiet. If you’re gonna visit, go up to the lodge vibes it’s just a very different.

Brian Searl: Have you gone out and tried to get that type of gaps or is that just who you’ve been attracting naturally as you’ve opened?

Ann-Tyler Konradi: We fell into it. 

Brian Konradi: That’s, yeah, that’s our, that’s who we naturally attracted from the beginning and that’s how we’ve gone forward in terms of our marketing and our brand positioning, et cetera.

We really are just targeting couples. We’re not anti group like we said, but it’s not been at all our bread and butter. And the few times that we’ve made a little bit of a marketing push, we haven’t really it’s not something you dabble into. You need to be all into groups and and so that’s not something, if it comes our way, great. Otherwise haven’t something we’ve been looking for. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: I also think you need more keys. The one reason that I think Lucky Arrow has really gotten traction of weight with the corporate side is that they, they have 30 plus keys now and with only 10 in dripping. You and there, two person occupancy, king size vet in each one.

You’re talking, if it’s a business group, then that’s 10 people total. We don’t have the capacity to have large groups. 

Brian Konradi: And just for the, anybody who’s listening, we’re talking about Lucky Arrow, which is our colleague down the street from one of our locations. That is got a great glamping, but also not so glamping ground that that is a well-known brand in our Austin area.

Brian Searl: Scott, and Jayne, how do you guys think about this when you’re either taking over, managing a new property, consulting for a new property, how do you guys look at the type of people, whether it’s glamping or, RV resorts traditional or Camping? How do you look at who do I want to attract?

Who do I wanna market to? What facilities do I have? Can I make this, can I, or should I make this into something that is currently not? 

Scott Foos: That is such a a wide ranging question. 

Brian Searl: But your pause, Scott, I know you’re gonna take it somewhere really good. 

Scott Foos: No, I was gonna ask Jayne if she wanted to run with it first 

Jayne Cohen: sure. I think so. I think there’s like a lot of different things that go into it. For instance I’ve actually done feasibility studies in both Waverly and Dripping Springs, and I know that like Dripping Springs is a big wedding destination kind of area for that area of Texas.

So I, I think that to a certain extent, the market defines it, right? And to, to another extent. But that’s not to say that a couple’s wedding retreat treat could do well in dripping Springs, but also. A Jellystone Park possibly could do well in Dripping Springs, especially because of your proximity to Austin and the number, simply the number of households that are within, a hundred miles of dripping springs, let’s say that.

So what I important is that you look at the market, you try to define the market as closely as you can, and you also then try to cater to the those who you wanna cater to. Brian and Ann, I think that it’s great that you are understanding your market. You’re catering specifically to that market, right?

And you’re making the experience a couple experience, which is okay to do. Oh, I’m trying to think of his name in, it’s a, it’s the farm. It’s in Carolina. I can’t think of the name. I think his first name’s Seth. He did a, he oh, Seth actually. Zach. Oh, Seth, yes. Yeah, Tennessee. He does a farm. Yeah. Yes.

There’s another example of he’s really being very micro-focused or myopic as to what his market is. Now obviously as you get bigger and you grow, sometimes you can’t sustain just that very defined market. And I don’t know if I’m having like a little bit of a delay here. I feel like I am, but but sometimes you can’t sustain.

Like lots of times I’ve had folks that are like, we wanna build a thousand sites in this market. And I’m like, what? That’s just, you’re just over building and building the market. So there’s just so many things that go into it. 

Scott Foos: And maybe just to, I, I don’t really have much to add to what Jayne shared, which I thought was great, Jayne.

But to your point, we’ve seen a lot of potential clients come to us and say, we are developing, as Jayne said in our example, a thousand sites in this market. And the first question we ask is, or one of the first questions we ask when we’re thinking about brand position is, who are your guests? And have you designed a property that’s speaking to who that guest mix is?

So that’s. That’s something that’s often overlooked in the development phase, but with an existing project, speaking more to Horizon’s experience with managing properties again, it’s one of the first things that we’re looking at is in this specific market is are we targeting and for this family, are we targeting, families?

Are we targeting the single, solo travelers? Is it more so couples. Is it extended stay snowbird or transient driven? And then try to drive really into where those guests are coming from and more specifics around the types of amenities and how they want to experience and interact with your brand.

And your property. It can be challenging, but it is a lot of the important work that has to be done early to really understand how you are setting yourself apart. But I think, Jayne, you may agree with me on this. I don’t wanna say you will, but there’s also a very big difference between glamping and RV, right?

I think an RV resort and a Campground that puts in nice cabins on existing RV sites. Is not even remotely the same as what Brian and Ann have done. And those guests are very different and understanding and being real about what your property is and isn’t is just as important as figuring out who your guests are.

Jayne Cohen: Yeah. You’re selling an experience and, oops, sorry Brian. No, I was just saying that, in everything we do, we’re selling an experience. I think, Scott, you’re right. I’ve I think that RV parks and grounds an opportunity, a lot of ’em have an opportunity to introduce glamping at their properties, but it has to be in the right setting on your property.

And what you just said about, we could have, cabins all in a row. And that’s really not necessarily the glamping experience that, it’s definitely not what Brian and Ann are providing. And you lots of times experience in planning, you’re developing, expanding, or bringing glamping into your RV park.

Like the setting for glamping, to me is very important. You know what Brian and Ann said, we’ve, you can go naked to the hot tub. That’s, that’s glamping, right? Because you’re in the woods. That’s. 

Brian Searl: You clinically could do that in an RV park too. You might not wanna, but. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: You might just be upon Yeah, no, I agree.

And I think that one of the things that’s happened, like during the COVID years, we started in 2019 with our Wimberley site, and we had a wait list. Like we, we could not we couldn’t build Yurts fast enough for the amount of people that wanted to get out of the city and come and they, the yurt itself was fascinating and amazing and they came.

But as, as more players have gotten into the mix and we built more and we built the the second location and other people came along, it it has become more and more. Necessary to provide experiences around the lodging. The lodging itself is awesome, but you also need to think about add-ons and do you have a spa and do you have hiking trails?

And what other things do you have for the guests? ’cause I think that the guest population has expanded, but it’s also gotten more discerning and wants, they want more and more of it. It’s like feeding the audience more and more is kind of part of what we do. So it’s a fun business to be in that sense, because we’re always pivoting and iterating and thinking about what’s something new that we could give our guests that would expand on their experience with us.

Scott Foos: And I know we’ve talked about this on this show and others in the past as well, but we have the very unique opportunity in outdoor hospitality to lean into, to travel trends in the greater in the greater travel industry, specifically with hotels where, folks do still participate in loyalty programs, but it’s for economical reasons only.

It’s not for loyalty. It’s not like you have a true loyalty to that brand other than earning points. And what type of experience and stay and relationship do you want? I is that between the hotel property and the guest or the brand and the guest and in our space, we have the ability to create these true connections and really focus in on how we’re making guests feel on site that drives loyalty itself.

And so I think, going back to the original talking point about some of the larger players with those, huge loyalty programs getting, starting to get into our space I think it’s still gonna be quite a while before there’s really mass adoption of that because of how fragmented and segmented our our segment of the industry is.

But I think it’s a unique opportunity to have a little, have best of both worlds where boutique hotel stays are are increasing in demand and popularity because those hotel operators have learned that folks are looking for something that’s unique and we can, both indoor and outdoor hospitality can both do it, but I think that outdoor hospitality has been doing it organically for a much longer time.

And we just didn’t quite know it. And we can figure out a way to continue to figure out a way to systematize it and innovate that. 

Brian Searl: I think there’s a couple things here, right? There’s, that we hear about the big acquisitions like Marriott and Hill, not acquisitions, but partnerships, acquisitions, whatever between these big hotel chains, but also there’s the, like you’re talking about with the boutique hotels, there’s the email I get from Hyatt like once a week with this new boutique hotel chain that’s now part of their point program that you can write.

They haven’t acquired them. And so I think your point to loyalty is very valid. Like I, I used to, I, I still am when I have time, but I used to be one of those people who had 19, I do have 19 credit cards in my wallet and I used to maximize for points and miles and I decide where I wanna go on vacation two years in advance and figure out how the banks could give it to me for free.

And it’s a great game. But that was like, it was way better in 2012 than it is today. Because those things have been devalued and changed, and maybe that’s a result of people like me. Maybe it isn’t. It’s probably more toward the economy has been good for so long that they haven’t had to do that, but I think that type of loyalty program can foster true loyalty if it’s set up right.

I just don’t think a lot of ’em are set up that way. Like I think they’re set up to be loyal in the fact that like the real money maker for the changes. I have your email address, your contact information. I can market it to you. I can sell that data to American Express or whatever else. I don’t like, I think there’s an opportunity there, done, right? That you could really be more inclusive or loyalty toward a property. Why do we not have a camps by loyalty program? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’m curious with with Brian and Ann do you guys get a lot of repeat guests? Do you have any I wish we wish got loyalty.

Brian Konradi: Yeah. I wish I had a stat in front of us. Anecdotally. I don’t think there’s any, a day in which one of our guests isn’t a repeat user. We do have a lot of repeat guests. I don’t know what percentage off the top of my head of our. Bookings are repeat bookings. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: I don’t either, but we do one, one thing we do is we have a digital guidebook that they are signed into when they, that gets their arrival details.

And then on the departure it asks for a review and we send a text message through that system that says if you wanna rebook here’s a special code for 20% off. Use it in the next three days or four days or something. And and then we get a lot of people that will, as they’re exiting, book the next anniversary, the next year or it’s usually, yeah.

Yes. Sometimes it could be a few months out. We do have some guests that are super users that come four or five times a year, but usually it’s. It’s a once a year type of thing. And a lot of our guests have really saved up to come. It’s a, as Brian was saying, it’s a special occasion and it’s not an inexpensive place to stay.

We feel like our. 

Brian Konradi: Not an inexpensive place. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Not an inexpensive, yeah. And so we really try to honor that. ’cause we feel like a lot of our guests have saved up and it’s special occasion for them. And so we really, we focus on the I, there’s a term for it that’s like the five love languages concept where y’all are probably familiar with this.

Where you do, you give a gift, you give a note, you give the service, you have a conversation, like you try to hit all the types of love languages for lack of a better word 

Brian Konradi: For customers. Yes. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. For customers and and then we have a guest book that they can sign in the yurt.

And that is. Hands down, our favorite part of the entire business is reading that guest book. Because people write the nicest things and you can see that we’ve it’s been an experience that they won’t forget and. 

Brian Konradi: It’s, people write shockingly nice things. It and personal things different than, by the way, any kind of review will get on, Google

Ann-Tyler Konradi: True.

Brian Konradi: Or whatnot. That’s in the book. In these books, they will draw pictures and talk about what happened. One of our favorite stories is more of a joke than a than a beautiful thing that someone said to us. It was the story of the time that we went and opened. We, every time we walk into a year, we kind of skin through what the last few reviews where, and one of them was I hope I get this right.

Had an amazing time here with my girlfriend. Just one of my favorite weekends ever. Next time I’m coming with my wife and we thought, oh my gosh. Yeah, that’s bold. Like, why are you telling us.

Brian Searl: I hope the wife doesn’t read the guest book and get the same Yurt.

Brian Konradi: Exactly. And then we looked closer. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: They got engaged.

Brian Konradi: Wedding ring, an engagement ring on there. And so we realized it’s pretty cute. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. So it’s, yeah.

Brian Searl: That does make more sense. I think we’re all scold, scarred by the Coldplay thing now, and we don’t want anything. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. No Coldplay situation. Yeah, no, this was sweet. But but yeah, it’s, we. 

Brian Konradi: Digress.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. But that is the most fun part of that conversation. We don’t have, we have a contactless check-in, so we don’t have a lot of if you don’t have a problem when you’re staying with us, you might never see us. You can come and go. We get the we software to send them all the information that they need and all the guidebooks on how to turn on the fire pit and the hot tub and all the things.

So if a guest doesn’t have any troubles, they might never speak with our staff in person at the time. But nonetheless, we find ways to, we leave notes, we have a little Prosecco gift and things like that. 

Brian Searl: It is interesting. I think that’s a Casey I was making a joke in some ways about the Campspot should have a loyalty program.

Although maybe that’s a thing one day, you never know. But I am curious. It would be interesting, and I don’t know if you guys could actually study this with all the data that you have to understand the behavior of the type of guests that would typically use a loyalty program and be loyal.

Because for me, like I’m loyal to Marriott, right? For a brand when I stay in hotels because I like my upgrades and my perks and stuff like that it’s a relationship like Scott was talking about. It’s not really loyalty to the brand, but loyalty to what the brand is specifically giving me in those instances.

And even then, I will rarely choose Marriott unless there’s nothing else that I can find. But it would be interesting to see the amount of people who are loyal to a property like Brian and Ann’s. Are they mostly local? Do they come from for farther away? Will they drive from the other side of Texas or different states to be loyal?

Because like for me. I would be loyal to a really great place that I found, but I haven’t found that yet. And I’ve stayed in some crazy interesting places. But my personality is this. Once I’ve experienced it once, maybe I might go to Brian and Ann’s other property, right? But I don’t know if I would go back to the same place.

But I think that science would be interesting to understand. 

Casey Cochran: Yeah, there’s a couple of things there. One is, if someone’s loyal to a place, especially a Campground, that they say they’re seasonally, right? Or they say they’re annually, right? So if they’re loyal, they check in and they check in for the summer.

So that’s literally what Camping you want them to do is say, I like this place enough where I’m gonna park my rig there for the summer. I think the second thing, even if you’re looking at it from a transient standpoint one of the dashboards that we built was this guest driving distance.

And it’s a heat map of where customers are coming from. And then it tells how much they’re spending, right? So are the customers coming from these different areas? What type of sites are they booking? And then, are they spending money at the park with add-ons and things of that sort.

And there’s an interesting correlation, not necessarily just only by zip code, but just trying to understand, where are my guests coming from, right? And then are, are they the people that are coming from 30 miles an in or 50 miles an in. Maybe they’re not spending as much on, on add-ons and they’re not, doing golf carts, but people coming from, 60 to 90 miles are does that make sense then to adjust the marketing to focus on people that are coming from a little bit further away because they’re more inclined to book the golf cart.

They’re more inclined to buy the firewood ice and smore kits than someone that’s maybe coming from, a little bit closer. So we’re trying to provide as much of those insights along with things like your lifetime spend of a guest to try to dive into that. Is it, there’s guests that come back all the time and they don’t spend any money when they’re there.

And then it’s still a spot. They’re the site night’s getting filled up. But, and it really depends on the park. ’cause there’s some parks that offer a lot of ancillary revenue opportunities and there’s some that’s not at all what the, what they’re after. That additional guess spend isn’t relevant ’cause they’re not offering additional things to purchase at the park.

Yeah, no, as much of that insight as can in terms of what would create loyalty yeah, I mean you just gotta keep looking at who the customer is and get as much detail as you can. And make, really it comes down to a marketing decision, who, who and how are we gonna market to based on the data.

Brian Searl: Yeah. I think interesting. Do we create, does every property even, obviously they don’t do, they need a loyalty program, right? Like Spacious Skies has a loyalty program, they have 15 locations. Each location is a little bit different. It makes perfect sense for a larger player like Spacious Skies, or even like maybe one day a Horizon Management has its loyalty program or whatever else, right?

Because you have different experiences. It’s much easier to Campground to have a loyalty, not a loyalty program, but to measure loyalty. Like you were saying, you come your park, your rig there the whole day. It’s just interesting to me, like maybe just the study of do I actually put effort into a loyalty program or do I almost then know that my guest doesn’t, isn’t a repeat, but that’s okay because I’m bringing in thousands of new people who are getting experience for the first time, still telling people about it, but maybe don’t wanna come back.

That’s okay to me, but then maybe I need almost an anti loyalty program. Come try it for the first time for 25% off or something and then spread the word or I don’t know. I think. 

Zach Stoltenberg: This kind of reminds me of a post it was a few months back. And Scott, I think you contributed to the article.

But Jeremy Wells with Longitude shared a really interesting take on this exact piece. What’s driving kind of the futures in hospitality and what they focused on was loyalty, memory and long-term value in that kind of brand relationship with their guests. And the metric that he came up with and what he calls it is ROX, it’s return on experience.

That’s, it’s that emotional ROI that you’re creating for your guests. And it doesn’t always, come out in a metric that’s measurable ’cause it’s not about, a P and L or, balance sheet or what’s profitable. You’re making that investment into that guest experience and that if they come and they have a good experience, that is what creates that loyalty. That is what creates that return customer. 

Brian Searl: Which drives ROI long term you’re not you’re by implicitly not focusing on the money short term, you’re getting it long term in the way that you just described.

Zach Stoltenberg: And it’s that emotional ROI.

Scott Foos: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Zach, thanks for mentioning that.

And I think that, the example that I gave if I’m remembering correctly in that article was a welcome snack basket, which is, Zach, you and I have talked about before that’s included in the cost of a cabin. And it’s included in the rate. It costs us five bucks maybe to put together.

And at the end of the day, we’re not able to track the return on that $5, but it’s, it is helping to improve overall guest reviews and experience. And being able to track that ROX is difficult or almost impossible to do on that specific item, but it really does make a big impact.

And I wanted to also just mention too, one last quick thing on, on loyalty programs. It is very salient to to a recent experience that I had too. Last week I took my wife and I took her parents up to a property that we manage in Oregon. And her father was like, can I book this place on Expedia?

Why do you ask? Yes, you can, but why do you ask? He’s then I can use my one key, whatever the loyalty program that Expedia has, that the OTA has. And I think that’s an interesting way for glamping, specifically, and in RV with the right accommodations to crosscut into the traditional hotel segment, is through those guests that are typically utilizing and loyal to the OTAs.

And Brian your question to Casey about that with Campspot a very interesting one for them to consider. Because I think that as diversity and stay continues to become such a an important factor in the overall lodging industry as folks move away from the big brands.

As that continues to build momentum I think people will be looking more to OTAs to help aggregate those potential options since it is still so fragmented and offering a loyalty program through that could be very interesting. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think we’re all just trying to figure each other out, right?

Like the hotel chains are trying to figure out the glamping or outdoor hospitality. I think this opportunity is also though for a lot of the glamping, outdoor hospitality independent operators to figure out what the hotels are doing. We talked a little bit about this on Outwired last week where we said I think there’s a lot of opportunity for people to target outside of, and most of the campgrounds is what we were talking about at the time, but outside of the traditional RVer, and we ran this through AI, and AI was like, go partner with a boutique hotel in your local city.

And then they can offer the same thing that Marriott and Postcard do, or Hilton and Auto Camp and say put my glamping sites as long as my brand matches yours, it’s the same kind of type of traveler, it fits and melds well together. Then you put your glamping sites on, your hotel and reach out to your email marketing list, and maybe I help you with hotels and there’s some crossover there, sending a bus downtown and saying, we’re just gonna pick up 20 people at nine o’clock on Saturday and bring ’em out to glamp who don’t have cars or never would’ve considered outdoor hospitality before.

So I think the more we talk about this and think about the things that like sound weird when they’re rolling off your tongue because they’ve never been said before, may spark an idea, not necessarily what you just said, but just how do I reach out to all these different types of guests. Because I think there’s a lot of people that and Campspot facilitates a lot of that too through their software.

I think, again, we’re all, Casey, have you made a loyalty program mean it’s been about 20 minutes we’ve been talking about it, but I think there’s all kinds of different ways. Like how does camp, how can Campspot, that’s a good question for you Casey. Let’s assume that we want an industry, some people want an industry that attracts more groups or more corporate travelers or more things like that.

Are there ways that Campspot can help assist with something like that? 

Casey Cochran: Yeah, the corporate travel in general is the, that’s the, to me it’s the biggest difference between hotels and campgrounds when you look at guests is that the volume of business travel that goes to a hotel versus the volume of business travel that goes to Campground are just significantly difference.

And there’s some resorts that do a good job of finding corporate retreats and because they have the lodging to, to take care of it, and they have enough cabins. To answer the question directly, the hesitation we’ve had with a full blown rewards program within Campspot is, if it gets to the point where there’s additional things that are being offered to the guest that they couldn’t get direct, it feels like we’re competing with the park directly then.

And so our goal with the marketplace was to have price parity and to not compete directly with parks for their own direct bookings. So our goal has always been to expand the audience and get new guests to recognize, Hey, I want to go to a park in Oregon. And I, I didn’t know this park existed.

We wanna draw those lines. We wanna, those two things to meet, and they book that way. And we fully expect that guest moving forward. If they book again at that park, they should book direct. There’s no reason they should use the marketplace if they know where this Campground is. And that’s been the vast majority, it’s still 82, 84% of every guest that books on the marketplace at that park is it first time staying there.

Now there is some guests that we have that just, they like the convenience of the marketplace search. And they’ll go back there and they’ll say, Hey, I’m looking for a place in around Austin. And they might fall back on the park that they’ve already stayed at. We can’t really help that. If that’s the case.

But they started with the mindset of, we’re open, right? We’re not necessarily only gonna stay at this place. We want to see what’s available, and sometimes they land on a park that they’ve already stayed at, but we’ve been really hesitant to create an incentive to use the marketplace versus booking direct in any sort of way other than convenience of inventory, because we’re not gonna compete with a park.

We can’t compete with them. And we’re, we’re really, and this isn’t throwing shade at any anything else. We’re the only, marketplace or OTA that’s committed to not doing any type of keyword searching competition. We’re not trying to say, Hey, to take the keywords from campgrounds and have them book through our marketplace versus booking them direct, because then, this add-on that we’ve created to help parks that are using our software is then competing with them financially. And that isn’t a good business move, in my opinion. 

Scott Foos: I think that’s so thoughtful, Casey. That makes a lot of sense. And the one, the group that we should be that should have a voice in this that have a lot of firsthand data of course, is KOA with that’s thinking of. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Scott Foos: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: There probably, I think there’s maybe a way for this to work reverse and we’re not trying to back into corner, Casey, we’re just talking about this in real time and I don’t wanna finish the whole show talking about loyalty program. But the last maybe piece of it, and if anybody else wants to wrap up anything, it’s maybe it works in reverse, maybe there’s a way for the Campground to say I’m gonna opt in to allowing people to earn points when they book direct with me even and not through the marketplace because they’re still using the Campspot software.

And we funnel those points up to an account that could be used back at my park or could be used at the marketplace. Like KOA is, right? But then maybe there’s an incentive for the park to do that. Maybe they get a discount on the first time rate that the marketplace charges them or something like that. And then it benefits the whole ecosystem. I don’t know. 

Casey Cochran: Yeah, no, we are also, we’re looking heavily into a loyalty program, right? And so that’s something that we’ve been doing a lot of research on. We’ve been doing a lot of thoughtful development on creating that. Something 2026 for sure will we’ll have in some capacity.

It’s just a matter of the scope of it, right? Does an individual park wanna create and and manage a loyalty program internally to the same regards as like a Jellystone franchise and managing their Yogi rewards and things of that sort. So it’s just the different scopes of that.

But 100%, a direct loyalty program in my opinion whether it’s an individual park or a multi park operator does make sense. There’s no question that people are keen to, incentives in at random times. That’s why it works, right? It’s just, I got a reminder the other day of, finishing, finishing a thing because we were looking at a trip to Las Vegas, and then here we go again.

I’m looking at what shows and stuff are there, like it, we know that it works, right? And I’m not loyal to anything in Las Vegas, but anything that can remind your guests of a reason to stay there is a good thing. And loyalty programs, that’s what they do. And everyone there’s not one person you can convince me that isn’t a sucker for a deal, right?

You want any reason to save any amount of money at any point in time. And so a lot of consumer habits is driven by, is this a good deal right now? And so loyalty programs can assist with that, right? It’s not the only factor, but it’s definitely a major one. Yeah, to draw the line Campspot software, 100%, we will be creating and developing a loyalty program internally that there’s no question there.

The marketplace we’ve tried to very carefully with that, with the idea that we do not wanna compete with direct bookings with our campgrounds, because then we’re working against driving a parks revenue up in theory because, we’re competing with direct bookings that we, they would’ve already or otherwise got.

Brian Konradi: We should.

Zach Stoltenberg: A lot of ways.

Brian Searl: Oh, go ahead.

Zach Stoltenberg: I think too, some of this, it’s already happening organically. As an example, a lot of times when I look up a place to stay when I’m traveling, I’ll look at VRBO and then I’ll find the exact same property listed on Airbnb, and then sometimes I’ll even be able to search and find their direct booking site.

And what a lot of these operators are doing because they pay fees for VRBO or Airbnb. If that property is $300 on Airbnb, it’s $275 if I book direct with them. And so it doesn’t have to be a complicated, loyalty rewards type of program. I think things like Brian and Ann described, like hitting them with that text email blast on checkout, Hey, you got five days to rebook and we’ll give you a 20% discount.

That’s a great thing. I’ve worked with some clients and operators that, they’ll look at their booking window and they’ll say, Hey, it’s Thursday afternoon and we’ve got three units that aren’t rented. And so they’ll do a quick text message blast to anyone who stayed with them for the last three months and just say, Hey, we’re doing a special deal.

If you book before the end of today, for this weekend you can get it for 25% off and it, it doesn’t have to be necessarily points and a system and all of this stuff. I think that model of loyalty and that connection and just Brian and Ann, exactly what you described, I think that is a loyalty program, right?

You having guests, the connection and the share those stories. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. On a goal for those together, right? Like for me, and I’m sorry Brian, I’ll let you One second. Like for me it is like when I’m going around, like I always look for the book direct too. When I’m planning in Ireland, I’m going to their website, I’m looking at their website.

I’m saying, can I book direct? Is it not necessarily just because it’s cheaper? Because also I have a knowledge of I don’t wanna make ’em pay 20% to booking.com or whatever else if they don’t have to, right? But also there is the convenience factor of me. If I can book everything through booking.com and I’m going on a two week trip around Ireland, having all the itineraries right in a row in one place, so I don’t have to go look for all the emails is helpful too.

Go ahead, Brian. Sorry. 

Brian Konradi: A conversation about loyalty is something we could talk about for a long time. And it’s been interesting. I just wanted to make sure that we did mention something that we at the Yurtopian have done that’s a bit unique that might be interesting for other people in the industry.

If you want to ask us some questions about it, but it’s on a different topic. We on the topic of exiting from people’s properties, we have two properties and we’ve been considering how to exit from one of our two properties. And we recently came across a really unique method of that happening when we saw an article in the New York Times about a woman in Ireland, speaking of Ireland again, who who raffled off her Irish farmhouse.

And we thought that was interesting. So we launched just a couple, three weeks ago, a program by which we are actually raffling off our Dripping Springs 46 acre property. It’s a raffle style transaction on a platform called raffle.com. And. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Just pause a second. Does it, do any of you all know about this or no?

Zach Stoltenberg: I do.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yes. No. 

Brian Konradi: Okay. You guys feel free to ask us about it if you want. We thought it was interesting for the industry. I think we’re the first ones in the United States to do this in glamping or real estate in general. It’s gotten us a lot of press. We’ve been in the Houston Chronicle just yesterday and 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: realtor.com on Sunday wrote an article and we’ve been in and talked.

Brian Konradi: It’s a new, it’s a new interesting way to exit one’s property. We still are very much committed to this industry and our our loving our jobs. And we’re going to keep our property in Wimberly, but but we’re we’re raffling off our property in Dripping Springs. 

Brian Searl: The first question I have is why exit that way?

Obviously there’s a reason.

Brian Konradi: It might be a bit surprising that someone would take an expensive piece of property and and exit via a raffle style transaction. It sounds like it could be a bit risky, but the way it’s structured Oh yeah. There you go. The way it’s structured is that that it’s a win-win.

So we establish a minimum ticket threshold. If we sell enough tickets that threshold, then we are obligated to convey the property to the winner, the person who draws the winning ticket. If we don’t met that, meet that threshold, then the winner takes 50% of the earnings and we take 40%. And we keep the property.

So from that perspective it could be a very much a win-win. We could, the person in Ireland who sold her Irish farmhouse, I think earned more through the tickets, the raffle style process. Yes. Than she would have had, she just exited naturally. For us, it’s a fun way to connect.

Going back to loyalty. It’s a fun way to connect to our community and to the glamping community at large, because someone would be stepping into our shoes without having to have done bank financing, acquisition financing in a traditional way. And it’s a, it’s a way to really.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: We’ll see.

Brian Konradi: Connect with someone who might might step into our shoes. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: And we like bankers and we like brokers, but if you could save the percentage on the broker fee too, right? 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. And it’s been such a weird market this year, right? It’s been hard to understand interest rates. Are they going up or down and what’s happening with that. It. Not the same scenario when we bought in 2021.

We had much more favorable bank financing options then than a buyer has today. I don’t know. We’ll see. We 

Brian Konradi: September 30th when the drawing happens.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: So at the glamping show.

Brian Konradi: We’ll see it just over six weeks.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I need you guys to draw my ticket. Okay. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Okay. So we

Brian Searl: Do you have enough time to run a glamping, Zach? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I bought a whole bunch of them. They’re in there.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: That’s awesome. Okay. So we don’t control it. It’s controlled, obviously, by the raffle platform. And so really we’ll be in Colorado at the time of the drawing, but the system will pick the winner and yeah. So it would be really fun if it was somebody within our community.

Brian Konradi: Somebody in the industry would be fun too.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Would be awesome. But you never know. So it’s been a wild ride. Like it, I don’t know. We threw it out there and, and we’re hopeful our role we’re working hard. We hired a PR firm to help us get the word out because it definitely needs virality. It needs everybody to tell everybody. In order for us to meet our minimum ticket threshold. 

Brian Searl: There are three people that watch this show. So you’re working on a little better.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Perfect.

Brian Konradi: Yeah, we’re getting there.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Perfect.

Brian Konradi: We’re getting there. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Jayne, you’ve been really quiet over there. Do you have anything to add on, anything we can talk about?

Jayne Cohen: I don’t

Brian Searl: I’ve ever heard you be this quiet.

Jayne Cohen: I’m just listening. I do wanna say that I read somewhere, and I’m trying to remember where, that the younger generations aren’t big on loyalty clubs, is, that’s what I read, that they’re not like drawn to, to lo to loyalty programs like the boomers and the older generations and i’ve often thought about what, when we, when I had a Venture Bound Camping resorts and I had 13 resorts, we talked about a loyalty program.

And while we did, if you had a credit at one of our resorts, we honored it at any of our resorts. We did stuff like that. But for me, loyalty was more of watching my loyalty was more of watching my repeat and referral business, that was my loyalty and trying to figure out ways how I could increase my business so that more of my business came from repeat and referral, because that kind of marketing in general costs me far less than some of my other kind of marketing, and how do we build that? And I do wanna say that I’ve always been a big customer service person and this marks 50 years that I’ve been in this industry. So I’ve been here a long time and way before experience and customer and giving great customer service was the cool thing to do.

We were doing it and I just think that it’s a little bit sad that we’re going to this all digital thing and just doing hospitality by having a gift basket. No offense, Scott. ’cause I do gift baskets too, but I think that, I think it’s a mistake getting away from that human touch. Like I do believe that we are in the hospitality business and I think we need a human touch.

I know that through my days of running resorts and having guest surveys, meeting the manager or meeting the owner or this, the hospitality and the helpfulness of the staff always was very important on the guest surveys, right? And so becoming so automated that, we’re really not in the hospitality business, I, that worries me.

Brian Searl: I think it all depends, to neatly wrap this up, I think it all depends on who your guest is and who you’re going after and who your target market is and who the type of people who are, who stay at your Campground, right? ’cause there are just like you, I agree with you fa there are a lot of people who wanna meet the manager who wanna hear the story.

I wanna meet the BnB owner in Ireland and have her tell me how she got this amazing house on the side of a cliff and maybe how I can sweet talk her into raffling it to me one day. I don’t know. But there are people like that. And then there are people like Brian and Ann were saying, who you can just have a great stay and if you figure out how to use the hot tub, you don’t need to talk to somebody and they’re just as happy that way.

So I think there’s, it just depends on the type of guests. Yes, automation is dangerous, we’re not gonna get into that conversation, but automation can also be great because it can allow people to focus more on meeting the guests, they’re more on undoing. So there’s so many different ways that you can handle and talk about that conversation.

Zach, you were shaking your head with the loyalty program thing. Do you agree with the younger people not using loyalty or do you disagree? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I think that it’s just perception of value. I think it’s different. Maybe I’m one of those rare, on the cusp. I’m a Zennial not quite, I’m too old to be a millennial and too young to be a good Gen Xer.

So I’m a little bit unique, but I think, the way I value loyalty is. What you were talking about, Brian, like some of those Perks and things. But I’m willing to pay more for a resort where I just get those Perks where I don’t have to earn ’em. Yes. If that’s a difference between a $200 a night and two $50 night stay, I’ll take the two $50 nights stay and not have to, gamble with it essentially.

Am I gonna bank enough points this year to get something good out of it or see a return from enough route to. 

Brian Searl: Gimme an upgrade to a suite. Yeah. Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah. So I think it’s, I think younger folks care more about the first experience, the first day, and they’re willing to come back and, when you look at some of those indicators, and some of those are things, Brian and Ann you shared, like when you’re getting those comments about the emotion, the way that their stay made them feel I think all of those are things that are evidence of that loyalty and if your guests are feeling that way, then you’ve accomplished it. You’ve met the goal of doing that. You’re building brand, you’re building loyalty, and you don’t need a program to do that. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah, I do agree. I think that this younger generation lives for, and values the experience part in a way that the older generations don’t, and they literally complain about nothing.

Like nothing. They’re such, I, we love the Gen Z demographic that comes out. We have a very young crowd that comes to our place and they’re fantastic guests. 99% of the time they’re. Awesome guests and respect the property and they love everything. And if something’s wrong, they call and say, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.

Brian Konradi: I’m so sorry. Our hot water’s not working. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Our hot water doesn’t work. We really hate to bother you. 

Brian Konradi: That apologies going the wrong direction. We, yeah. We’re the ones that’s supposed to be delivering hot water, not. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. And when we have guests that are our age and older, it’s very different. 

Brian Konradi: They know how to complain.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yes. Very different. 

Brian Searl: I think it’s still always been about the experience though. I think just even what you’re talking about, bye Jayne. We’re losing people and dropping like flies. ’cause we’re over, we’re gonna end it in a second. But so I think it’s the same thing, like I think that the boomers you’re talking about, we’re just raised on a different type of experience where points, maybe points, miles, loyalty programs were actually worth something and actually meant something.

Even when Starwood existed before Marriott bought, like I was guaranteed a suite upgrade if I was a certain level. Like you had to give me it. That was the terms of the condition if one was available. And then that disappeared and so did a lot of other things over the last 15 years. So I think it’s just a different generation has been raised with different experiences and the younger generation has been raised with a, I want the experience to just be there because I’m like, I’m not used to getting that experience in a good loyalty program.

So I don’t think either way is wrong or right, but I think it’s still all about experience and convenience for the people. So it’s two things that come back to, but let’s wrap this thing up. Brian and Ann, I really appreciate you guys being here. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. Thanks for having us. We appreciate it. 

Brian Searl: Where are you guys gonna be in five years if everything goes perfectly for your business?

And then tell us where they can find more about your business online. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: We’ll probably be still here in Wimberley, Texas running the Yurtopian in Wimberly.

Brian Konradi: Yep. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah. And they can go to, oh, to find out more about to stay is you can go to the Yurtopian.com and we have a banner on top of our website that shows that page that you were showing. That’s the Win My Resort campaign. And yeah. 

Brian Konradi: And for more information about our interesting exit raffle style transaction, you can go to winmyresort.com. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: It’s a good domain. You should sell that to somebody when you’re done raffling your resort bet you can make a profit up in the main thing. You should raffle the domain.

Zach.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Maybe.

Brian Searl: Final thoughts? 

Zach Stoltenberg: It’s always good. Enjoy meet new operators and connecting with people. But we’ve got some sites under construction down near you, so maybe the next time I come down, I’ll stay at Yurtopian.

Brian Konradi: Oh, that’d be great. Love to connect.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yeah, anytime.

Brian Konradi: Talk, anytime. Architecture and design would always be a fun conversation with us as well. Yeah.

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Yes. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Absolutely. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Let us know. 

Zach Stoltenberg: And yeah, anybody that wants to get in touch with me you can find me on LinkedIn. You can email me at [email protected]. Or I think most of my stuff is out on YouTube and all the socials and everything out.

Yeah, reach out if we can help you if you’re an operator that’s existing that wants to expand or if you’re. Getting ready to jump in for the first time or you’re looking at property. And I guess I like to tell people I don’t charge anybody for a phone call. So a lot of times it is just that kind of friendly intro.

Gimme some advice, gimme your thoughts, gimme some ideas. Maybe that grows into a working relationship. Maybe it’s just my chance to connect, with other people that might be able to help them at the stage that they’re at.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you guys all for being here. Appreciate it. We lost a couple people.

Jayne Cohen from Campground Consulting Group. If you’re looking for consulting services, look her up. I don’t know her website off the top of my head. I’m not gonna try to guess it, but maybe campgroundconsultinggroup.com, that might be their competitor. I don’t know. It’s a creative name, but hopefully that’s Jayne.

She does some great work. We get Scott Foos with Horizon Outdoor Hospitality does management and consulting services too, I think. A little bit like consulting services. He’s got a new brand that he launched there. And then we have Casey from Campspot of course, campspot.com. If you’re looking for property management software. But appreciate you guys all being here. We will see you next week on another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

If you’re not tired of hearing of me, I will be on another podcast with Scott Bahr. We’re gonna talk about some data as it relates to glamping in the industry and how things have looked over the summer, but how they’re trending toward fall.

And then a little bit about AI and the new launch of GPT-five, and if we have time, what happens if AI solves physics and what does Camping look like in that world? So we’ll see if we have time to get to those kind of crazy conversations. But other than that, we’ll see you next week on another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

Thanks guys. Appreciate you being here. 

Ann-Tyler Konradi: Bye.